LIBRAR 

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UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 


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Received  October,  1894. 
No.ttf 


1 


ON  THE 


AUTHORIZED     VERSION 


OF    THE 


3STEW     TESTAMENT. 


Works  by  R.  C.  TRENCH,  D.  D.,  Dean  of  Westminster. 

IN    UNIFORM    STYLE    WITH    THIS    VOLUME. 
I. 

ON    THE    STUDY    OF   WORDS. 

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II. 

ON    THE    LESSONS    IN    PROVERBS. 

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III. 

SYNONYMS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT. 

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IV. 

ON    THE    ENGLISH    LANGUAGE, 

PAST     A  N  I>     PRESENT. 

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V. 

POEM  S. 

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VI. 
CALDERON,    HIS    LIFE    AND    GENIUS, 

WITH  SPECIMENS  OF  HIS  PLATS. 

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SERMONS  ON  THE  DIVINITY  OF  CHRIST. 

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ON  THE  AUTHORIZED  VERSION  OF  THE 
NEW  TESTAMENT, 

IN    CONNECTION    WITH    RECENT    PROPOSALS    FOR    ITS    REVISION 

1  vol.  12iuo.     Pric"  7")  cenK 

PUBLISHED  BY  J.  S.  TIEDFIELT),  NEW  YORK. 


ON  THE 


AUTHORIZED  VERSION 


OF    THE 


NEW    TESTAMENT 


IN    CONNECTION   WITH    SOME   RECENT    PROPOSALS 
FOR    ITS    REVISION 


BY 


RICHARD  CHMNEVIX  TRENCH,  D.  D. 

1 1 

DEAN    OF    WESTMINSTER 

4UTHOR  OF  "  SYNONYMS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT" — "  THE  STUDY  OF  WORDS"- 

"  THE  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE  PAST  AND  PRESENT"— "  THE  LESSONS  IN 

PROVERBS" — "  SEBMONS" — "  POEMS" — "  CALDERON,"  ETC. 


pV*'"'  0? 

OTI7BRSIT 


RED  FIELD 

34  B  E  E  K  M  A  N  STREET,  NEW  YORK 
1858 


PREFACE. 


A  WORD  or  two,  which  is  all  that  I  have  to  say  by 
way  of  preface,  will  not  refer  so  much  to  the  book  as 
to  the  form  of  the  book.  Were  the  materials  of  this 
little  volume  to  be  disposed  over  again,  I  should  cer 
tainly  prefer  to  follow  in  their  disposition  that  sim 
pler  arrangement  which  Professor  Scholefield  adopted 
in  his  Hints  for  an  Improved  Translation  of  the  New 
Testament.  He  has  there  followed  throughout  the 
order  of  the  books  of  Scripture  ;  and,  as  these  passed 
in  succession  under  his  review,  he  has  made  such  ob 
servations  as  seemed  to  him  desirable,  without  at 
tempting  any  more  ambitious  arrangement.  After  I 
had  advanced  so  far  as  to  make  it  almost  impossible 
to  recede,  I  found  continual  reason  to  regret  that  I 
had  chosen  any  other  plan.  I  am  not,  indeed,  with 
out  the  strongest  conviction  that  a  book,  well  and 
happily  arranged  on  the  scheme  of  rather  bringing 


D  PREFACE. 

subjects  to  a  point,  and  considering  together  matters 
which  have  a  certain  unity  in  themselves,  both  ought 
to  be,  and  would  be,  more  interesting  and  instructive 
than  one  in  which  the  same  materials  were  disposed 
in  such  a  merely  fortuitous  sequence.  But  this  ar 
rangement  is  very  difficult  to  attain.  I  can  not  charge 
myself  with  having  spared  either  thought  or  pains  in 
striving  after  it ;  but  am  painfully  conscious  how  little 
has  been  my  success,  and  how  unsatisfactory  the  re 
sult.  Some  things,  indeed,  already,  as  they  escape 
the  confusion  of  MS.,  and  assume  the  painful  clear 
ness  of  print,  I  see  might  be  in  fitter  place  than  they 
are ;  but  much  refuses  still  to  group  itself  in  any  sat 
isfying  combination.  This  acknowledgment  is  not 
made  with  the  desire  to  anticipate  and  avert  the  cen 
sure  which  this  fault  in  the  composition  of  the  book, 
to  speak  nothing  of  other  more  serious  faults,  may 
deserve  ;  but  only  to  suggest  that  a  better  and  happier 
distribution,  though  doubtless  possible,  was  yet  not 
so  easy  and  obvious  as  one  who  had  never  made  the 
endeavor  to  attain  it  might  perhaps  take  for  granted. 

WESTMINSTER,  June  24,  1858. 


TABLE   OF   CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 
INTRODUCTORY  REMARKS PAGE    9 

CHAPTER  II. 
ON  THE  ENGLISH  or  THE  AUTHORIZED  VERSION 19 

CHAPTER  III. 

ON    SOME    QUES  •  IONS    OF    TRANSLATION 49 

CHAPTER  IV. 
ON  SOME  UNNECESSARY  DISTINCTIONS  INTRODUCED 65 

CHAPTER  V. 
ON  SOME  REAL  DISTINCTIONS  EFFACED 84 

CHAPTER  VI. 

ON  SOME  BETTER  RENDERINGS  FORSAKEN,  OR  PLACED  IN  THE 

MARGIN 97 

CHAPTER  VII. 
ON  SOME  ERRORS  OF  GREEK  GRAMMAR  IN  OUE  VERSION  . .    .  .113 


8  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  VIII. 
ON  SOME  QUESTIONABLE  RENDERINGS  or  WORDS...  PAGE  135 

CHAPTER  IX. 
ON  SOME  WORDS  WHOLLY  OR  PARTIALLY  MISTRANSLATED..   148 

CHAPTER  X. 

ON  SOME  CHARGES  UNJUSTLY  BROUGHT  AGAINST  OUR  VER 
SION 164 

CHAPTER  XL 
ON  THE  BEST  MEANS  OF  CARRYING  OUT  A  REVISION...    .   173 


CHAPTER   I. 

INTRODUCTORY   REMARKS. 

IT  is  clear  that  the  question,  "  Are  we,  or  are  we 
not,  to  have  a  new  translation  of  Scripture  ?"  or  ra 
ther —  since  few  would  propose  this  who  did  not  wish 
to  loosen  from  its  anchors  the  whole  religious  life  of 
the  English  people  — "  Shall  we,  or  shall  we  not,  have 
a  new  revision  of  the  Authorized  Version  ?"  is  one 
which  is  presenting  itself  more  and  more  familiarly 
to  the  minds  of  men.  This,  indeed,  is  'not  by  any 
means  the  first  time  that  this  question  has  been  ear 
nestly  discussed  ;  but  that  which  differences  the  pres 
ent  agitation  of  the  matter  from  preceding  ones  is, 
that  on  all  former  occasions  the  subject  was  only  de 
bated  among  scholars  and  divines,  and  awoke  no  in 
terest  in  circles  beyond  them.  The  present  is  appa 
rently  the  first  occasion  on  which  it  has  taken  the 
slightest  hold  of  the  popular  mind.  But  now  indica 
tions  of  the  interest  which  it  is  awakening  reach  us 
from  every  side.  America  is  sending  us  the  instal- 

1* 


10  INTRODUCTORY   REMARKS. 

ments  —  it  must  be  owned  not  very  encouraging  ones 

—  of  a  New  Version,  as  fast  as  she  can.     The  wish 
for  a  revision  has  for  a  considerable  time  been  work 
ing  among  Dissenters  here ;  by  the  voice  of  one  of 
these  it  has  lately  made  itself  heard  in  Parliament, 
and  by  the  mouth  of  a  Regius  Professor  in  Convoca 
tion.     Our  Reviews,  and  not  those  only  which  are 
specially  dedicated  to  religious  subjects,  begin  to  deal 
with  the  question  of  revision.     There  are,  or  a  little 
while  since  there  were,  frequent  letters  in  the  news 
papers,  urging,  or  remonstrating  against,  such  a  step 

—  few  of  them,  it  is  true,  of  much  value,  yet  at  the 
same  time  showing  how  many  minds  are  now  occupied 
with  the  subject. 

It  is  manifestly  a  question  of  such  immense  impor 
tance,  the  issues  depending  on  a  right  solution  of  it 
are  so  vast  and  solemn,  that  it  may  well  claim  a  tem 
perate  and  wise  discussion.  Nothing  is  gained  on  the 
one  hand  by  vague  and  general  charges  of  inaccuracy 
brought  against  our  Version ;  they  require  to  be  sup 
ported  by  detailed  proofs.  Nothing,  on  the  other 
hand,  is  gained  by  charges  and  insinuations  against 
those  who  urge  a  revision,  as  though  they  desired  to 
undermine  the  foundations  of  the  religious  life  and 
faith  of  England ;  were  Socinians  in  disguise,  or  Pa 
pists —  Socinians  who  hoped  that,  in  another  transla 
tion,  the  witness  to  the  divinity  of  the  Son  and  of  the 
Spirit  might  prove  less  clear  than  in  the  present — 
Papists  who  desired  that  the  authority  of  the  English 


INTRODUCTORY   REMARKS.  11 

Scripture,  the  only  Scripture  accessible  to  the  great 
body  of  the  people,  might  be  so  shaken  and  rendered 
so  doubtful,  that  men  would  be  driven  to  their  Church, 
and  to  its  authority,  as  the  only  authority  that  re 
mained.  As  little  is  the  matter  advantaged,  or  in 
any  way  brought  nearer  to  a  settlement,  by  sentimen 
tal  appeals  to  the  fact  that  this,  which  it  is  now  pro 
posed  to  alter,  has  been  the  Scripture  of  our  child 
hood,  in  which  we  and  so  many  generations  before  us 
first  received  the  tidings  of  everlasting  life.  All  this, 
well  as  it  may  deserve  to  be  considered,  yet  as  argu 
ment  at  all  deciding  the  question,  will  sooner  or  later 
have  to  be  cleared  away ;  and  the  facts  of  the  case, 
apart  from  cries,  and  insinuations,  and  suggestions  of 
evil  motives  and  appeals  to  the  religious  passions  and 
prejudices  of  the  day  —  apart,  too,  from  feelings  which 
in  themselves  demand  the  highest  respect  —  will  have 
to  be  dealt  with  in  that  spirit  of  seriousness  and  ear 
nestness  which  a  matter  affecting  so  profoundly  the 
whole  moral  and  spiritual  life  of  the  English  people, 
not  to  speak  of  nations  which  are  yet  unborn,  abun 
dantly  deserves. 

In  the  pages  which  follow,  I  propose  not  mainly  to 
advocate  a  revision,  nor  mainly  to  dissuade  one,  but 
to  consider  rather  the  actual  worth  of  our  present 
Translation  —  its  strength,  and  also  any  weaknesses 
which  may  affect  that  strength  —  its  beauty,  and  also 
the  blemishes  which  impair  that  beauty  in  part — the 
grounds  on  which  a  new  revision  of  it  may  be  do- 


12  INTRODUCTORY   REMARKS. 

manded —  the  inconveniences,  difficulties,  the  dangers 
it  may  be,  which  would  attend  such  a  revision ;  and 
thus,  so  far  as  this  lies  in  my  power,  to  assist  others, 
who  may  not  have  been  able  to  give  special  attention 
to  this  subject,  to  form  a  decision  for  themselves.  I 
will  not,  in  so  doing,  pretend  that  rny  own  mind  is 
entirely  in  equilibrium  on  the  subject.  On  the  whole, 
I  am  persuaded  that  a  revision  ought  to  come ;  I  am 
convinced  that  it  will  come.  Not,  however,  I  would 
trust,  as  yet ;  for  we  are  not  as  yet  in  any  respect 
prepared  for  it;  the  Greek  and  the  English  which 
should  enable  us  to  bring  this  to  a  successful  end 
might,  it  is  to  be  feared,  be  wanting  alike.  Nor  cer 
tainly  do  I  underrate  the  other  difficulties  which  would 
beset  such  an  enterprise  ;  they  look,  some  of  them,  the 
more  serious  to  me  the  more  I  contemplate  them: 
and  yet,  believing  that  this  mountain  of  difficulty  will 
have  to  be  surmounted,  I  can  only  trust  and  believe 
that  it,  like  so  many  other  mountains,  will  not  on 
nearer  approach  prove  so  formidable  as  at  a  distance 
it  appears.  Only  let  the  Church,  when  the  due  time 
shall  arrive,  address  herself  to  this  work  with  earnest 
prayer  for  the  Divine  guidance,  her  conscience  bear 
ing  her  witness  that  in  no  spirit  of  idle  innovation, 
that  only  out  of  dear  love  to  her  Lord  and  his  truth, 
and  out  of  an  allegiance  to  that  truth  which  overbears 
every  other  consideration,  with  an  earnest  longing  to 
present  his  Word,  whereof  she  is  the  guardian,  in  nil 
its  sincerity  to  her  children,  she  has  undertaken  this 


INTRODUCTORY   REMARKS.  13 

hard  and  most  perilous  task,  and  in  some  way  or  other 
every  difficulty  will  be  overcome.  Whatever  pains 
and  anxieties  the  work  may  cost  her,  she  will  feel 
herself  abundantly  rewarded  if  only  she  is  able  to 
offer  God's  Word  to  her  children,  not  indeed  free 
from  all  marks  of  human  infirmity  clinging  to  its  out 
ward  form  —  for  we  shall  have  God's  treasure  in 
earthen  vessels  still — but  with  some  of  these  blem 
ishes  which  she  now  knows  of  removed,  and  altogether 
approaching  nearer  to  that  which  she  desires  to  see 
it  —  namely,  a  work  without  spot  or  wrinkle,  or  any 
such  thing;  a  perfect  copy  of  an  archetype  that  is 
perfect. 

In  the  meantime,  while  the  matter  is  still  in  sus 
pense  and  debate — while  it  occupies,  as  it  needs  must, 
the  anxious  thoughts  of  many — it  can  not  misbecome 
those  who  have  been  specially  led  by  their  duties  or 
their  inclinations  to  a  more  close  comparison  of  the 
English  Version  with  the  original  Greek,  to  offer 
whatever  they  have  to  offer,  be  that  little  or  much, 
for  the  helping  of  others  toward  a  just  and  dispas 
sionate  judgment,  and  one  founded  upon  evidence,  in 
regard  to  the  question  at  issue.  And  if  they  consider 
that  a  revision  ought  to  come,  or,  whether  desirable 
or  not,  that  it  will  come,  they  must  wish  to  throw  in 
any  contribution  which  they  have  to  make  toward  the 
better  accomplishment  of  this  object.  Assuming  that 
they  have  any  right  to  mingle  in  the  controversy  at 
all,  they  may  reasonably  hope,  that  even  if  much  which 


14  INTRODUCTORY   REMARKS. 

they  bring  has  long  ago  been  brought  forward  by 
others,  or  must  be  set  aside  from  one  cause  or  an 
other,  yet  that  something  will  remain,  and  will  sur 
vive  that  rigid  proof  to  which  every  suggestion  of 
change  should  be  submitted.  And  in  a  matter  of  such 
high  concernment  as  this  the  least  is  much.  To  have 
cast  in  even  a  mite  into  this  treasury  of  the  Lord,  to 
have  brought  one  smallest  stone  which  it  is  permitted 
to  build  into  the  walls  of  his  house,  to  have  .detected 
one  smallest  blemish  that  would  not  otherwise  have 
been  removed,  to  have  made  in  any  way  whatever  a 
single  suggestion  of  lasting  value  toward  the  end  here 
in  view,  is  something  for  which  to  be  for  ever  thank 
ful.  It  is  in  that  intention,  with  this  hope,  that  I 
have  ventured  to  publish  these  pages. 

The  work,  indeed,  which  I  thus  undertake,  can  not 
be  regarded  as  a  welcome  one.  There  is  often  a 
sense  of  something  ungenerous,  if  not  actually  unjust, 
in  passing  over  large  portions  of  our  Version,  where 
all  is  clear,  correct,  lucid,  happy,  awaking  continual 
admiration  by  the  rhythmic  beauty  of  the  periods,  the 
instinctive  art  with  which  the  style  rises  and  falls 
with  the  subject,  the  skilful  surmounting  of  difficulties 
the  most  real,  the  diligence  with  which  almost  all 
which  was  happiest  in  preceding  translations  has  been 
retained  and  embodied  in  the  present ;  the  constant 
solemnity  and  seriousness  which,  by  some  nameless 
skill,  is  made  to  rest  upon  all ;  in  passing  over  all 
this  and  much  more  with  a  few  general  words  of  rec- 


INTRODUCTORY   REMARKS.  15 

ognition,  and  then  stopping  short  and  urging  some 
single  blemish  or  inconsistency,  and  dwelling  upon 
and  seeming  to  make  much  of  this,  which  often  in 
itself  is  so  little.  For  the  flaws  pointed  out  are  fre 
quently  so  small  and  so  slight,  that  it  might  almost 
seem  as  if  the  objector  had  armed  his  eye  with  a  mi 
croscope  for  the  purpose  of  detecting  that  which  oth 
erwise  would  have  escaped  notice,  and  which,  even 
if  it  were  faulty,  might  well  have  been  suffered  to 
pass  by,  unchallenged  and  lost  sight  of  in  the  general 
beauty  of  the  whole.  The  work  of  Momus  is  never, 
or  at  least  never  ought  to  be,  other  than  an  unwel 
come  one. 

Still  less  do  we  like  the  office  of  faultfinder,  when 
that  whose  occasional  petty  flaws  we  are  pointing  out, 
has  claims  of  special  gratitude  and  reverence  from  us. 
It  seems  at  once  an  unthankfulness  and  almost  an  im 
piety  to  dwell  on  errors  in  that  to  which  we  for  our 
selves  owe  so  much  ;  to  which  the  whole  religious  life 
of  our  native  land  owes  so  much  ;  which  has  been  the 
nurse  and  fosterer  of  our  national  piety  for  hundreds 
of  years ;  which,  associated  with  so  much  that  is  sad 
and  joyful,  sweet  and  solemn,  in  the  heart  of  every 
one,  appeals  as  much  to  our  affections  as  to  our 
reason. 

But  admitting  all  this,  we  may  still  reconcile  our 
selves  to  this  course  by  such  considerations  as  the  fol 
lowing  :  and  first,  that  a  passing  by  of  the  very  much 
which  is  excellent,  with  a  dwelling  on  the  very  little 


16  INTRODUCTORY   REMARKS. 

which  is  otherwise,  lies  in  the  necessity  of  the  task 
undertaken.  What  is  good,  what  is  perfect,  may  have, 
and  ought  to  have,  its  goodness  freely  and  thankfully 
acknowledged  ;  but  it  offers  comparatively  little  mat 
ter  for  observation.  It  is  easy  to  exhaust  the  lan 
guage  of  admiration,  even  when  that  admiration  is 
intelligently  and  thoughtfully  rendered.  We  are  not 
tempted  to  pause  till'we  meet  with  something  which 
challenges  dissent,  nor  can  we  avoid  being  mainly 
occupied  with  this. 

Then,  too,  if  it  be  urged  that  many  of  the  objec 
tions  made  are  small  and  trivial,  it  can  only  be  replied 
that  nothing  is  really  small  or  trivial  which  has  to  do 
with  the  Word  of  God,  which  helps  or  hinders  the 
exactest  setting  forth  of  that  Word.  That  Word 
lends  an  importance  and  a  dignity  to  everything  con 
nected  with  it.  The  more  deeply  we  are  persuaded 
of  the  inspiration  of  Holy  Scripture,  the  more  intol 
erant  we  shall  be  of  any  lets  and  hinderances  to  the 
arriving  at  a  perfect  understanding  of  that  which  the 
mouth  of  God  has  spoken.  In  setting  forth  his  Word 
in  another  language  from  that  in  which  it  was  first 
uttered,  we  may  justly  desire  such  an  approximation 
to  perfection  as  the  instrument  of  language  —  to  which, 
marvellous  organ  of  mind  as  it  is,  there  yet  cleaves 
so  much  of  human  imperfection — will  allow;  and 
this  not  merely  in  greatest  things,  but  in  smallest. 

Nor  yet  need  the  occasional  shortcomings  of  our 
Translators  be  noted  in  any  spirit  of  irreverence  or 


INTRODUCTORY   REMARKS.  17 

disparagement.  Some  of  the  errors  into  which  they 
fell  were  inevitable,  and  belonged  in  no  proper  sense 
to  them  more  than  to  the  whole  age  in  which  they 
lived — as,  for  instance,  in  the  matter  of  the  Greek 
article.  Unless  we  were  to  demand  a  miracle,  and 
that  their  scholarship  should  have  been  altogether  on 
a  different  level  from  that  of  their  age,  this  could  not 
have  been  otherwise.  We  may  reasonably  require 
of  such  a  company  of  men,  undertaking  so  great  a 
work,  that  their  knowledge  should  approve  itself  on 
a  level  with  the  very  best  which  their  age  could  sup 
ply  ;  even  as  it  was  ;  but  more  than  this  it  would  be 
absurd  and  unfair  to  demand.  If  other  of  their  mis 
takes  might  have  been  avoided,  as  is  plain  from  the 
fact  that  predecessors  or  contemporaries  did  avoid 
them,  and  yet  were  not  avoided  by  them,  this  only 
shows  that  the  marks  of  human  weakness  and  infirm 
ity,  which  cleave  to  every  work  of  men,  cleave  also 
to  theirs.  Let  me  also  observe,  further,  that  he  who 
may  undertake  in  any  matter  to  correct  them  does  not 
in  this  presumptuously  affirm  himself  a  better  scholar 
than  they  were.  He  for  the  most  part  only  draws  on 
the  accumulated  stores  of  the  knowledge  of  Greek 
which  have  been  laboriously  got  together  in  the  two 
hundred  and  fifty  years  that  have  elapsed  since  their 
work  was  done  ;  he  only  claims  to  be  an  inheritor  in 
some  sort  of  the  cares  specially  devoted  to  the  eluci 
dation  of  the  meaning  of  Holy  Scripture  during  this 
period.  It  would  be  little  to  the  honor  of  these  ages 


18  INTRODUCTORY   REMARKS. 

if  they  had  made  no  advances  herein ;  little  to  our 
honor,  if  we  did  not  profit  by  their  acquisitions.  This 
much  premised,  I  shall  proceed  to  consider  our  Au 
thorized  Version  of  the  New  Testament  under  certain 
successive  aspects,  devoting  a  chapter  to  each. 


ON   THE   ENGLISH    OF   OUR    VERSION.  19 


t 

CHAPTER   II. 

ON   THE   ENGLISH    OF   THE   AUTHORIZED   VERSION. 

THE  first  point  which  I  propose  to  consider  is  the 
English  in  which  our  Translation  is  composed.  This 
has  been  very  often,  and  very  justly,  the  subject  of 
highest  commendation ;  and  if  I  do  not  reiterate  in 
words  of  my  own  or  of  others  these  commendations, 
it  is  only  because  they  have  been  uttered  so  often  and 
so  fully,  that  it  has  become  a  sort  of  commonplace  to 
repeat  them ;  one  fears  to  encounter  the  rebuke  which 
befell  the  rhetorician  of  old,  who,  having  made  a  long 
and  elaborate  oration  in  praise  of  the  strength  of  Her 
cules,  was  asked,  "  Who  has  denied  it  ?"  at  the  close. 
Omitting,  then,  to  praise  in  general  terms  what  all 
must  praise,  it  may  yet  be  worth  while  to  consider  a 
very  little  in  what  those  high  merits,  which  by  the 
confession  of  all  it  possesses,  mainly  consist ;  nor  shall 
I  shrink  from  pointing  out  what  appear  to  me  its  oc 
casional  weaknesses  and  blemishes,  the  spots  upon  the 
frim's  face,  which  impair  its  perfect  beauty.  When 


20  ON   THE   ENGLISH   OF   OUR   VERSION. 

we  seek  to  measure  the  value  of  any  style,  there  are 
two  points  which  claim  to  be  considered :  first,  the 
words  themselves  ;  and  then,  secondly,  the  words  in 
their  relations  to  one  another,  and  as  modified  by 
those  relations  ;  in  brief,  the  dictionary  and  the  gram 
mar.  Now,  I  should  not  hesitate  in  expressing  my 
conviction  that  the  dictionary  of  our  English  Version 
is  superior  to  the  grammar.  The  first  seems  to  me 
nearly  as  perfect  as  possible,  the  other  not  altogether 
faultless. 

In  respect  of  words,  we  recognise  the  true  delectus 
verborum  on  which  Cicero*  insists  so  earnestly,  and 
in  which  so  much  of  the  charm  of  style  consists.  All 
the  words  used  are  of  the  noblest  stamp,  alike  re 
moved  from  vulgarity  and  pedantry  ;  they  are  neither 
too  familiar,  nor  on  the  other  side  not  familiar  enough  ; 
they  never  crawl  on  the  ground,  as  little  are  they 
stilted  and  far-fetched.  And  then  how  happily  mixed 
and  tempered  are  the  Anglo-Saxon  and  Latin  voca 
bles  !  No  undue  preponderance  of  the  latter  makes 
the  language  remote  from  the  understanding  of  sim 
ple  and  unlearned  men.  Thus,  we  do  not  find  in  our 
Version,  as  in  the  Rheims,  whose  authors  seem  to 
have  put  off  their  loyalty  to  the  English  language 
with  their  loyalty  to  the  English  crown,  '  odible' 
(Rom.  i.  30),  nor  <  impudicity'  (Gal.  v.  19),  nor 
*  longanimity'  (2  Tim.  iii.  10),  nor  '  co-inquinations* 
(2  Pet.  ii.  13,  20),  nor  <  comessations'  (Gal.  v.  21), 

*  De  Oral.,  3,  37. 


ON   THE   ENGLISH   OF   OUR   VERSION.  21 

nor  '  contristate'  (Ephes. iv.  80), nor i  zealatours'  (Acts 
xxi.  20),  nor  <  agnition'  (Philem.  6),  nor  '  suasible' 
(Jam.  iii.  17),  nor  '  domesticals'  (1  Tim.  v.  8),  nor 
'  repropitiate'  (Heb.  ii.  17).*  And  yet,  while  it  is 
thus,  there  is  no  extravagant  attempt  on  the  other 
side  to  put  under  ban  words  of  Latin  or  Greek  deri 
vation,  where  there  are  not,  as  very  often  there  could 
not  be,  sufficient  equivalents  for  them  in  the  homelier 
portion  of  our  language ;  no  affectation  of  excluding 
these,  which  in  their  measure  and  degree  have  as 
good  a  right  to  admission  as  the  most  Saxon  vocable 
of  them  all ;  no  attempt,  like  that  of  Sir  John  Cheke, 
who  in  his  version  of  St.  Matthew — in  many  respects 
a  valuable  monument  of  English — substituted  (  hun- 
dreder'  for  « centurion/  '  freshman'  for  '  proselyte,' 
'  gainbirth'  (that  is,  againbirth)  for  '  regeneration,' 
with  much  else  of  the  same  kind.  The  fault,  it  must 
be  owned,  was  in  the  right  extreme,  but  was  a  fault 
and  affectation  no  less. 

One  of  the  most  effectual  means  by  which  our  Trans 
lators  have  attained  their  happy  felicity  in  diction, 
while  it  must  diminish  to  a  certain  extent  their  claims 


*  Where  the  word  itself  which  the  Rheims  translators  employ  is  a 
perfectly  good  one,  it  is  yet  curious  and  instructive  to  observe  how 
often  they  have  drawn  on  the  Latin  portion  of  the  language,  where 
we  have  drawn  on  the  Saxon  ;  thus,  they  use  '  corporal'  where  we 
have  'bodily'  (1  Tim.  iv.  8),  'incredulity'  where  we  have  'unbelief 
(Heb.  iii.  19,  and  often),  'precursor'  where  we  have  'forerunner' 
(JHeb.  vi.  20),  'dominator'  where  we  have  'Lord'  (Jude  4),  'cogita 
tion'  where  we  have  'thought'  (Luke  ix.  46),  'fraternity'  where  we 
have  'brotherhood'  (1  Pet.  ii.  17). 


22       ON  THE  ENGLISH  OF  OUR  VERSION. 

to  absolute  originality,  enhances  in  a  far  higher  de 
gree  their  good  sense,  moderation,  and  wisdom.  I 
allude  to  the  extent  to  which  they  have  availed  them 
selves  of  the  work  of  those  who  went  before  them, 
and  incorporated  this  work  into  their  own,  everywhere 
building,  if  possible,  on  the  old  foundations,  and  dis 
placing  nothing  for  the  mere  sake  of  change.  It  has 
thus  come  to  pass  that  our  Version,  besides  having 
its  own  felicities,  is  the  inheritor  of  the  felicities  in 
language  of  all  the  translations  which  went  before. 
Tyndale's  was  singularly  rich  in  these,  which  is  the 
more  remarkable,  as  his  other  writings  do  not  surpass 
in  beauty  or  charm  of  language  the  average  merit  of 
his  contemporaries  ;  and  though  much  of  his  work  has 
been  removed  in  the  successive  revisions  which  our 
Bible  has  undergone,  very  much  of  it  still  remains : 
the  alterations  are  for  the  most  part  verbal,  while  the 
forms  and  moulds  into  which  he  cast  the  sentences 
have  been  to  a  wonderful  extent  retained  by  all  who 
succeeded  him.  And  even  of  his  Xsfis  very  much  sur 
vives.  To  him  we  owe  such  phrases  as  "  turned  to 
flight  the  armies  of  the  aliens,"*  "  the  author  and  fin 
isher  of  our  faith  ;"  to  him,  generally,  we  owe  more 
than  to  any  single  laborer  in  this  field — as,  indeed, 
may  be  explained  partly,  though  not  wholly,  from  the 
fact  that  he  was  the  first  to  thrust  in  his  sickle  into 
this  harvest.  Still,  while  King  James's  Translators 

*  It  may  be  said  that  this  is  obvious  ;  yet  not  so.     The  Rheims  does 
not  get  nearer  to  it  than  "  turned  away  the  camp  of  foreigners." 


ON  THE  ENGLISH  OF  OUR  VERSION.       23 

were  thus  indebted  to  those  who  went  before  them  in 
the  same  sacred  office,  to  Tyndale  above  all,  for  innu 
merable  turns  of  successful  translation,  which  they 
have  not  failed  to  adopt  and  to  make  their  own,  it 
must  not  be  supposed  that  very  many  of  these  were 
not  of  their  own  introduction.  A  multitude  of  phrases 
which,  even  more  than  the  rest  of  Scripture,  have  be 
come,  on  account  of  their  beauty  and  fitness,  "  house 
hold  words"  and  fixed  utterances  of  the  religious  life 
of  the  English  people,  we  owe  to  them,  and  they  first 
appear  in  the  Version  of  1611 ;  such,  for  instance,  as 
"the  Captain  of  our  salvation"  (Heb.  ii.  10),  "  the 
sin  which  doth  so  easily  beset  us"  (Heb.  xii.  1),  "  the 
Prince  of  life"  (Acts  iii.  15). 

But  in  passing,  as  I  now  propose  to  do,  from  gen 
erals  to  particulars,  it  is  needful  to  make  one  prelimi 
nary  observation.  He  who  passes  judgment  on  the 
English  of  our  Version,  he,  above  all,  who  finds  fault 
with  it,  should  be  fairly  acquainted  with  the  English 
of  that  age  in  which  this  Version  appeared.  Else  he 
may  be  very  unjust  to  that  which  he  is  judging,  and 
charge  it  with  inexactness  of  rendering,  where  indeed 
it  was  perfectly  exact  according  to  the  English  of  the 
time,  and  has  only  ceased  to  be  so  now  through  sub 
sequent  changes  or  modifications  in  the  meaning  of 
words.  Few,  I  am  persuaded,  who  have  studied  our 
Translation,  and  tried  how  far  it  will  bear  a  strict 
comparison  with  the  original  which  it  undertakes  to 
represent,  but  have  at  times  been  tempted  to  make 


24  ON   THE   ENGLISH   OF   OUR   VERSION. 

hasty  judgments  here,  and  to  pass  sentences  of  con 
demnation  which  they  have  afterward,  on  better  knowl 
edge,  seen  reason  to  recall.  Certainly,  in  many  places 
where  I  once  thought  our  Translators  had  been  want 
ing  in  precision  of  rendering,  I  now  perceive  that, 
according  to  the  English  of  their  own  day,  their  Ver 
sion  is  exempt  from  the  faintest  shadow  of  blame.  It 
is  quite  true  that  their  rendering  has  become  in  a 
certain  measure  inexact  for  us,  but  this  from  circum 
stances  quite  beyond  their  control  —  namely,  through 
those  mutations  of  language  which  never  cease,  and 
which  cause  words  innumerable  to  drift  imperceptibly 
away  from  those  meanings  which  once  they  owned. 
In  many  cases,  no  doubt,  our  Authorized  Version,  by 
its  recognised  authority,  by  an  influence  working  si 
lently,  but  not  the  less  profoundly  felt,  has  given  fixity 
to  the  meaning  of  words,  which  otherwise  they  would 
not  have  possessed,  has  kept  them  in  their  places ; 
but  the  currents  at  work  in  language  have'  been  some 
times  so  strong  as  to  overbear  even  this  influence. 
The  most  notable  examples  of  the  kind  which  occur 
to  me  are  the  following : — 

Matt.  vi.  25.  — "  Take  no  thought  for  your  life, 
what  ye  shall  eat,  or  what  ye  shall  drink.1"  This 
"  take  no  thought"  is  certainly  an  inadequate  transla 
tion  in  our  present  English  of  M  jmspi^vare.  The  words 
seem  to  exclude  and  to  condemn  that  just,  forward- 
looking  care  which  belongs  to  man,  and  differences 
him  from  the  beasts  which  live  only  in  the  present; 


ON   THE   ENGLISH   OF   OUR   VERSION.  25 

and  "  most  English  critics  have  lamented  the  inadver 
tence  of  our  Authorized  Version,  which,  in  bidding  us 
6  take  no  thought'  for  the  necessaries  of  life,  prescribes 
to  us  what  is  impracticable  in  itself,  and  would  be  a 
breach  of  Christian  duty  even  were  it  possible."*  But 
there  is  no  '  inadvertence'  here.  When  our  Transla 
tion  was  made,  "  take  no  thought"  was  a  perfectly 
correct  rendering  of  M  (xspiju-vars.  <  Thought'  was  then 
constantly  used  as  equivalent  to  anxiety  or  solicitous 
care  ;  as  let  witness  this  passage  from  Bacon  :f  "  Har 
ris,  an  alderman  in  London,  was  put  in  trouble,  and 
died  with  thought  and  anxiety  before  his  business 
came  to  an  end ;"  or  still  better,  this  f?om  one  of  the 
Somers  Tracts  (its  date  is  of  the  reign  of  Elizabeth) : 
"  In  five  hundred  years  only  two  queens  have  died 
in  childbirth.  Queen  Catherine  Parr  died  rather  of 
thought.'^  A  better  example  even  than  either  of 
these  is  that  occurring  in  Shakespeare's  Julius  Ccesar\\ 
("take  thought  and  die  for  Caesar") ,  where  "  to  take 
thought"  is  to  take  a  matter  so  seriously  to  heart  that 
death  ensues. 

Luke  xiii.  7. — "Why  cumber  eth  it  the  ground?" 
'  Cumbereth'  seems  here  too  weak  and  too  negative  a 
rendering  of  xarapysT,  which  is  a  word  implying  active, 
positive  mischief ;  and  so  no  doubt  it  is  in  the  present 
acceptation  of  "  to  cumber ;"  which  means  no  more 

*  SCRIVENEE,  Notes  on  the  New  Testament,  vol.  i.,  p.  162;  and  cf. 
Alford,  in  loco. 

t  History  of  Henry  VII.        J  Vol.  i.,  p.  172.         ||  Act.  ii.,  sc.  1. 

2     ^  % 

KJVI7B! 


26  ON   THE    ENGLISH   OF   OUR   VERSION. 

than  "  to  burden."  But  it  was  not  so  always.  "  To 
cumber"  meant  once  to  vex,  annoy,  injure,  trouble ; 
Spenser  speaks  of  "  cumbrous  gnats."  It  follows  that 
when  Bishop  Andrews  quotes  the  present  passage,* 
"  Why  troub/et/t  it  the  ground  ?"  (I  do  not  know  from 
whence  he  derived  this  '  troubleth,'  which  is  not  in 
any  of  our  translations),  and  when  Coverdale  renders 
it,  "  Why  hindereth  it  the  ground  ?"  they  seem,  but 
are  not  really,  more  accurate  than  our  own  Transla 
tors  were.  The  employment  by  these  last  of  c  cum 
ber,'  at  Luke  x.  40  (the  only  other  place  in  the  Au 
thorized  Version  where  the  word  occurs),  is  itself 
decisive  of  the*  sense  they  ascribed  to  it.  nspisovcw-o 
(literally  u  was  distracted")  is  there  rendered  by 
them,  "  was  cumbered."! 

Acts  xvii.  23. — '  Devotions.'  This  was  a  perfectly 
correct  rendering  of  rfs-Sarffxa-ra  at  the  time  our  Trans 
lation  was  made,  although  as  much  can  scarcely  be 
affirmed  of  it  now.  '  Devotions'  is  now  abstract,  and 
means  the  mental  offerings  of  the  devout  worshipper ; 
it  was  once  concrete,  and  meant  the  outward  objects 

*  Works,  vol.  ii.,  p.  40. 

t  I  have  no  doubt  that  most  readers  of  that  magnificent  passage  in 
Julius  Ccesar,  where  Antony  prophesies  over  the  dead  body  of  Caesar 
the  ills  of  which  that  murder  shall  be  the  cause,  give  to  '  cumber*  a 
wrong  sense  in  the  following  lines  : — 

"Domestic  fury  and  fierce  civil  strife 
Shall  cumber  all  the  parts  of  Italy." 

They  understand,  shall  load  with  corpses  of  the  slain,  or,  as  we  say, 
'  encumber'  —  so  at  least  I  understood  it  long.  A  good,  even  a  grand 
sense,  but  it  is  not  Shakespeare's.  He  means,  shall  trouble  or  mis 
chief. 


ON   THE   ENGLISH   OF   OUR   VERSION.  27 

to  which  these  were  rendered,  as  temples,  altars,  im 
ages,  shrines,  and  the  like  ;  '  Heiligthiimer'  De  Wette 
has  very  happily  rendered  it ;  cf.  2  Thess.  ii.  4,  the 
only  other  passage  in  the  New  Testament  where  the 
word  occurs,  and  where  we  have  rendered  iravra 
Xsyo'fjisvov  0£ov  TJ  tfe'^atfjuta,  "  all  that  is  called  God  or 
that  is  worshipped"  It  is  such — not  the  '  devotions' 
of  the  Athenians  worshipping,  but  the  objects  which 
the  Athenians  devoutly  worshipped  —  which  St.  Paul 
affirms  that  he  '  beheld/  or,  as  it  would  be  better, 
"  accurately  considered"  (avaJewpwv)  :  yet  the  follow 
ing  passage  in  Sidney's  Arcadia  will  bear  out  our 
Translators,  and  justify  their  use  of  '  devotions/  as 
accurate  in  their  time,  though  no  longer  accurate  in 
ours :  "  Danietas  began  to  look  big,  to  march  up  and 
down,  swearing  by  no  mean  devotions  that  the  walls 
should  not  keep  the  coward  from  him." 

Acts  xix.  37.  —  "Ye  have  brought  hither  these 
men,  who  are  neither  robbers  of  churches,  nor  blas 
phemers  of  your  goddess."  I  long  counted  this  "  rob 
bers  of  churches,"  as  a  rendering  of  IspotfjXou?,  if  not 
positively  incorrect,  yet  a  slovenly  and  indefensible 
transfer  of  Christian  language  to  heathen  objects. 
But  it  is  not  so.  '  Church'  is  in  constant  use  in  early 
English  for  heathen  and  Jewish  temples  as  well  as 
for  Christian  places  of  worship.  I  might  quote  a 
large  array  of  proofs,  but  two  will  suffice.  In  the 
lirst,  which  is  from  Holland's  Pliny*  the  term  is  ap- 

*  Vol.  ii.,  p.  502. 


28  ON   THE   ENGLISH    OF   OUR   VERSION. 

plied  to  a  heathen  temple :  "  This  is  that  Latona 
which  you  see  in  the  Church  of  Concordia  in  Rome  ;" 
while  in  the  second,  from  Sir  John  Cheke's  transla 
tion  of  St.  Matthew,  it  is  a  name  given  to  the  temple 
at  Jerusalem :  "  And  lo  the  veil  of  the  Church  was 
torn  into  two  parts  from  the  top  downwards"  (Matt. 
xxvii.  51). 

Acts  xxi.  15. — "After  three  days  we  took  up  our 
carriages  and  went  up  to  Jerusalem."  A  critic  of 
the  early  part  of  this  century  makes  himself  merry 
with  these  words,  and  their  inaccurate  rendering  of 
the  original :  "  It  is  not  probable  that  the  Cilician 
tent-maker  was  either  so  rich  or  so  lazy."  And  a 
more  modern  objector  to  the  truthfulness  of  the  Acts 
asks,  "  How  could  they  have  taken  up  their  carriages, 
when  there  is  no  road  for  wheels,  nothing  but  a 
mountain-track,  between  Csesarea  and  Jerusalem  ?" 
But  '  carriage'  is  a  constant  word  in  the  English  of 
the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries*  for  baggage, 
being  that  which  men  carry,  and  not,  as  now,  that 
which  carries  them.  Nor  can  there  be  any  doubt 
that  it  is  employed  by  our  Translators  here,  as  also 
in  one  or  two  other  passages  where  it  occurs,  in  this 
sense  (Judg.  xviii.  21 ;  1  Sam.  xvii.  22)  ;  and  while 
so  understood,  the  words  "  took  up  our  carriages"  are 
a  very  sufficient  rendering  of  the  fai<fxsvoutaii.svQi  of  the 
original.  The  Geneva  has  it  correctly,  though  some 
what  quaintly,  "  trussed  up  our  fardels." 

*  See  NORTH'S  Plutarch,  passim. 


ON   THE   ENGLISH   OF   OUR    VERSION.  29 

Ephes.  ir.  3.  —  "Endeavoring  to  keep  the  unity 
of  the  Spirit  in  the  bond  of  peace."  Passages  like 
this,  in  which  the  verb  '  endeavor'  occurs,  will  some 
times  seem  to  have  been  carelessly  and  loosely  trans 
lated  ;  when,  indeed,  they  were  rendered  with  perfect 
accuracy  according  to  the  English  of  that  day.  "  En 
deavor,"  it  has  been  well  said,  "  once  denoted  all 
possible  tension,  the  highest  energy  that  could  be 
directed  to  an  object.  With  us  it  means  the  last, 
feeble,  hopeless  attempt  of  a  person  who  knows  that 
he  can  not  accomplish  his  aim,  but  makes  a  conscience 
of  going  through  some  formalities  for  the  purpose  of 
showing  that  the  failure  is  not  his  fault."*  More 
than  one  passage  suffers  from  this  change  in  the  force 
of 4  endeavor ;'  as  2  Pet.  i.  15,  and  this  from  the  Ephe- 
sians  still  more.  If  we  attach  to  *  endeavor'  its  pres 
ent  meaning,  we  may  too  easily  persuade  ourselves 
that  the  Apostle  does  no  more  than  bid  us  to  attempt 
to  preserve  this  unity,  and  that  he  quite  recognises 
the  possibility  of  our  being  defeated  in  the  attempt. 
He  does  no  such  thing ;  he  assumes  success.  2tfou<5a- 
£ov-££  means  "  giving  all  diligence,"  and  4  endeavoring' 
meant  no  less  two  centuries  and  a  half  ago. 

1  Tim.  v.  4.  —  "If  any  widow  have  children  or 
nepheivs"  But  why,  it  has  been  asked,  are  ex/ova, 
or  descendants,  translated  '  nephews'  here  ?  and  why 
should  '  nephews'  be  specially  charged  with  this  duty 
of  supporting  their  relatives  ?  The  answer  is  that 

*  Lincoln's  Jnn  Sermons,  by  F.  D.  MAURICE,  p.  156. 


30  ON   THE   ENGLISH   OF   OUR   VERSION. 

(  nephews'  (=  <  nepotes')  was  the  constant  word  for 
grandchildren  and  other  lineal  descendants,  as  wit 
ness  the  following  passages ;  this  from  Hooker :  "  With 
what  intent  they  [the  apocryphal  books]  were  first 
published,  those  words  of  the  nephew  of  Jesus  do 
plainly  signify:  *  After  that  my  grandfather  Jesus 
had  given  himself  to  the  reading  of  the  Law  and  of 
the  Prophets,  he  purposed  also  to  write  something 
pertaining  to  learning  and  wisdom  ;'  "*  and  this  from 
Holland  :  "  The  warts,  black  moles,  spots,  and  freck 
les  of  fathers,  not  appearing  at  all  upon  their  own 
children's  skin,  begin  afterward  to  put  forth  and  show 
themselves  in  their  nephews,  to  wit,  the  children  of 
their  sons  and  daughters."!  There  is  no  doubt  that 
1  nephews'  is  so  used  here,  as  also  at  Judg.  xii.  14. 
Words  which,  like  this,  have  imperceptibly  shifted 
their  meaning,  are  peculiarly  liable  to  mislead  ;  though 
by  no  fault  of  the  Translators.  This  one  has  misled 
a  scholar  so  accurate  as  the  late  Professor  Blunt ; 
who,  in  his  Church  of  the  First  Three  Centuries, 
p.  27,  has  urged  the  circumstance  that  in  the  apos 
tolic  times  the  duties  of  piety  extended  so  far,  that 
i  children  only,  but  even  nephews,  were  expected  to 
support  their  aged  relations.  Words  of  this  character 
differ  from  words  which  have  become  wholly  obsolete. 
These  are  like  rocks  which  stand  out  from  the  sea ; 
we  are  warned  of  their  presence,  and  there  is  little 
danger  of  our  making  shipwreck  upon  them.  But 

*  Ecclesiastical  Polity,  b.  v.,  c.  xx.        t  Plutarch's  Morals,  p.  555 


ON   THE   ENGLISH   OF   OUR   VERSION.  81 

words  like  those  which  have  been  just  cited,  as  famil 
iar  now  as  when  our  Version  was  made,  but  employed 
in  quite  different  meanings  from  those  which  they  then 
possessed,  are  like  hidden  rocks,  which  give  no  notice 
of  their  presence,  and  on  which  we  may  be  ship 
wrecked,  if  I  may  so  say,  without  so  much  as  being 
aware  of  it.  It  would  be  manifestly  desirable  that 
these  unnoticed  obstacles  to  our  seizing  the  exact 
sense  of  Scripture,  obstacles  which  no  carelessness  of 
our  Translators,  but  which  Time  in  its  onward  course, 
has  placed  in  our  way,  should,  in  case  of  any  revision, 
be  removed.  "  Res  fugiunt,  vocabula  manent" — 
this  is  the  law  of  things  in  their  relation  to  words, 
and  it  renders  necessary  at  certain  intervals  a  read 
justment  of  the  two. 

In  thus  changing  that  which  by  the  silent  changes 
of  time  has  become  liable  to  mislead,  we  should  only 
be  working  in  the  spirit,  and  according  to  the  evident 
intention,  which  in  their  time  guided  the  Translators 
of  1611.  They  evidently  contemplated,  as  part  of 
their  task,  the  removing  from  their  revision  of  such 
words  as  in  the  lapse  of  years  had  become  to  their 
contemporaries  unintelligible  or  misleading.  For  in 
stance,  '  to  depart'  no  longer  meant  to  separate  ;  and 
just  as  at  a  later  day,  in  1661,  "  till  death  us  depart" 
was  changed  in  the  Marriage  Service  for  that  which 
now  stands  there,  "  till  death  us  do  part"  so  in 
their  revision  '  separate'  was  substituted  for  «  depart' 
("  depart  us  from  the  love  of  God")  at  Rom.  viii.  39. 


32  ON   THE   ENGLISH    OF   OUR   VERSION. 

At  Matt,  xxiii.  25,  we  have  another  example  of  the 
same.  The  words  stood  there  up  to  the  time  of  the 
Geneva  version,  "  Ye  make  clean  the  outer  side  of  the 
cup  and  of  the  platter ;  but  within  they  are  full  of 
bribery  and  excess."  '  Bribery,'  however,  about  their 
time  was  losing,  or  had  lost,  its  meaning  of  rapine  or 
extortion — was,  therefore,  no  longer  a  fit  rendering 
of  apifayy  ;  the  '  bribour'  or  '  briber'  was  not  equiva 
lent  to  the  robber :  they,  therefore,  did  wisely  and 
well  in  exchanging  '  bribery'  for  '  extortion'  here. 
They  dealt  in  the  same  spirit  with  <  noisome'  at  1  Tim. 
vi.  9.  In  the  earlier  versions  of  the  English  Church, 
and  up  to  their  revision,  it  stood,  "  They  that  will  be 
rich  fall  into  temptation  and  snares,  and  into  many 
foolish  and  noisome  (/3xa/3epa£)  lusts."  '  Noisome,' 
that  is,  when  those  translations  were  made,  was  sim 
ply  equivalent  to  noxious  or  hurtful  ;*  but  in  the  be 
ginning  of  the  seventeenth  century  it  was  acquiring  a 
new  meaning,  the  same  which  it  now  retains,  namely, 
that  of  exciting  disgust  rather  than  that  of  doing  act 
ual  hurt  or  harm.  Thus,  a  tiger  would  have  been 
'  noisome'  in  old  English,  a  skunk  or  a  polecat  would 
be  '  noisome'  in  modern.  Here  was  reason  enough 
for  the  change  which  they  made. 

Indeed,  our  only  complaint  against  them  in  this 
matter  is,  that  they  did  not  carry  out  this  side  of 

*  "  He  [the  superstitious  person]  is  persuaded  that  they  be  gods 
indeed,  but  such  as  be  noisome,  hurtful,  and  doing  mischief  unto 
men."  —  HOLLAND,  Plutarch's  Morals,  p.  260. 


ON   THE   ENGLISH    OF   OUR   VERSION.  33 

their  revision  consistently  and  to  the  full.  For  in 
stance,  in  respect  of  this  very  word,  they  have  suffered 
it  to  remain  in  some  other  passages,  from  which,  also, 
it  should  have  disappeared.  Three  or  four  of  these 
occur  in  the  Old  Testament,  as  Job  xxxi.  40 ;  Ps. 
xci.  3  ;  Ezek.  xiv.  21 ;  only  one  in  the  New,  Rev. 
xvi.  2  ;  where  xaxov  s\ms  is  certainly  not  "  a  noisome 
sore"  in  our  sense  of  *  noisome,'  that  is,  offensive  or 
disgusting,  but  an  '  evil,'  or,  as  the  Rheims  has  it,  "  a 
cruel  sore."  It  is  the  same  with  c  by-and-by.'  This, 
when  they  wrote,  was  ceasing  to  mean  immediately. 
The  inveterate  procrastination  of  men  had  caused  it 
to  designate  a  remoter  term  ;  even  as  '  presently'  does 
not  any  longer  mean,  at  this  present,  but,  in  a  little 
while  ;  and  "  to  intend  anything"  is  not  now,  to  do  it, 
but  to  mean  to  do  it.  They  did  well,  therefore,  that 
in  many  cases,  as  at  Mark  ii.  12,  they  did  not  leave 
'  by-and-by'  as  a  rendering  of  eMsug  and  svMg ;  but  they 
would  have  done  still  better  if  they  had  removed  it  in 
every  case.  In  four  places  (Matt.  xiii.  21 ;  Mark  vi.  25 ; 
Luke  xvii.  7  ;  xxi.  9)  they  have  suffered  it  to  remain. 
Again,  '  to  grudge'  was  ceasing  in  their  time  to 
have  the  sense  of,  to  murmur  openly,  and  was  already 
signifying  to  repine  inwardly ;  a  '  grudge'  was  no 
longer  an  open  utterance  of  discontent  and  displeasure 
at  the  dealings  of  another,*  but  a  secret  resentment 

*  "  Yea,  without  grudging  Christ  suffered  the  cruel  Jews  to  crown 
Him  with  most  sharp  thorns,  and  to  strike  him  with  a  reed." — Ex 
amination  of  William  Thorpe,  in  Fox's  Book  of  Martyrs. 

2* 


34  ON   THE   ENGLISH    OF   OUR   VERSION. 

thereupon  entertained.  It  was  only  proper,  therefore, 
that  they  should  replace  '  to  grudge'  by  l  to  murmur,' 
and  a  '  grudge'  by  a  *  murmuring,'  in  such  passages  as 
Mark  xiv.  5  ;  Acts  vi.  1.  On  two  occasions,  however, 
they  have  suffered  4  grudge'  to  stand,  where  it  no  longer 
conveys  to  us  with  accuracy  the  meaning  of  the  origi 
nal,  and  even  in  their  time  must  have  failed  to  do  so. 
These  are  1  Pet.  iv.  9,  where  they  render  avsv  yoyyutffxwv 
"  without  grudging  ;"  and  Jam.  v.  9,  where  W  <frsva%ers 
is  rendered  "  Grudge  not."  These  renderings  were 
inherited  from  their  predecessors,  but  the  retention 
of  them  was  an  oversight. 

On  another  occasion,  our  Translators  have  failed  to 
carry  out  to  the  full  the  substitution  of  a  more  appro 
priate  phrase  for  one  which,  indeed,  in  the  present 
instance,  could  have  been  at  no  time  worthy  of  praise, 
or  other  than  more  or  less  misleading ;  I  allude  to 
Acts  xii.  4 :  "  Intending  after  Easter  to  bring  him 
forth  to  the  people."  They  plainly  felt  that '  Easter,' 
which  had  designated  first  a  heathen,  and  then  a  Chris 
tian  festival,  was  not  happily  used  to  set  forth  a  Jew 
ish  feast,  even  though  that  might  occupy  the  same 
place  in  the  Jewish  calendar  which  Easter  occupied 
in  the  Christian  ;  and  they  therefore  removed  <  Easter' 
from  places  out  of  number,  where  in  the  earlier  ver 
sion  it  had  stood  as  the  rendering  of  n.-'c^a,  substitu 
ting  '  passover'  in  its  room.  With  all  this  they  have 
suffered  '  Easter'  to  remain  in  this  single  passage  — 
sometimes,  I  am  sure,  to  the  perplexity  of  the  English 


ON    THE   LNGLTSII    OF   OUR    VERSION.  35 

reader.  '  Jewry'  in  like  manner,  which  has  been  re 
placed  by  c  Judasa'  almost  everywhere,  has  yet  been 
allowed,  I  must  needs  believe  by  the  same  oversight, 
twice  to  remain  (Luke  xxiii.  5 ;  John  vii.  1). 

In  dealing  with  obsolete  words,  the  case  is  not  by 
any  means  so  plain.  And  yet  it  does  not  seem  diffi 
cult  to  lay  down  a  rule  here ;  the  difficulties  would 
mainly  attend  its  application.  The  rule  would  seem 
to  me  to  be  this  :  Where  words  have  become  perfectly 
unintelligible  to  the  great  body  of  those  for  whom  the 
translation  is  made,  the  toiCJ~ai  of  the  Church,  they 
ought  clearly  to  be  exchanged  for  others ;  for  the 
Bible  works  not  as  a  charm,  but  as  reaching  the  heart 
and  conscience  through  the  intelligent  faculties  of  its 
hearers  and  readers.  Thus  it  is  with ;  taches,' i  ouches,' 
'  boiled,'  '  ear'  (arare),  '  daysman,'  in  the  Old  Testa 
ment,  words  dark  even  to  scholars,  where  their  schol 
arship  is  rather  in  Latin  and  Greek  than  in  early 
English.  Of  these,  however,  there  is  hardly  one  in 
the  New  Testament.  There  is,  indeed,  in  it  no  incon 
siderable  amount  of  archaism,  but  standing  on  a  quite 
different  footing ;  words  which,  while  they  are  felt 
by  our  people  to  be  old  and  unusual,  are  yet,  if  I  do 
not  deceive  myself,  perfectly  understood  by  them,  by 
wise  and  simple,  educated  and  uneducated  alike. 
These,  shedding  round  the  sacred  volume  the  rever 
ence  of  age,  removing  it  from  the  ignoble  associations 
which  will  often  cleave  to  the  language  of  the  day, 
should  on  no  account  be  touched,  but  rather  thank- 


36  ON    THE   ENGLISH   OF   OUR   VERSION. 

fully  accepted  and  carefully  preserved.  For,  indeed, 
it  is  good  that  the  phraseology  of  Scripture  should 
not  be  exactly  that  of  our  common  life  ;  should  be  re 
moved  from  the  vulgarities,  and  even  the  familiarities, 
of  this ;  just  as  there  is  a  sense  of  fitness  which  dic 
tates  that  the  architecture  of  a  church  should  be  dif 
ferent  from  that  of  a  house. 

It  might  seem  superfluous  to  urge  this  ;  yet  it  is  far 
from  being  so.  It  is  well-nigh  incredible  what  words 
it  has  been  sometimes  proposed  to  dismiss  from  our 
Version,  on  the  ground  that  they  "  are  now  almost  or 
entirely  obsolete."  Symonds  thinks  ';  clean  escaped" 
(2  Pet.  ii.  18)  "  a  very  low  expression  ;"  and,  on  the 
plea  of  obsoleteness,  Wemyss  proposed  to  get  rid  of 
'straightway,'  'haply,'  'twain,'  '  athirst,'  'wax,' 
'lack,'  '  ensample,'  'jeopardy,'  'garner,'  'passion,' 
with  a  multitude  of  other  words  not  a  whit  more 
apart  from  our  ordinary  use.  Purver,  whose  New 
and  Literal  Translation  of  the  Old  and  New  Testa 
ment  appeared  in  1764,  has  an  enormous  list  of  ex 
pressions  that  are  "  clownish,  barbarous,  base,  hard, 
technical,  misapplied,  or  new  coined ;"  and  among 
these  are  'beguile,'  'boisterous,'  'lineage,'  'perse 
verance,'  '  potentate,'  '  remit,'  '  seducers,'  '  shorn,' 
'  swerved,'  '  vigilant,' '  unloose,' '  unction,' '  vocation.' 
For  each  of  these  (many  hundreds  in  number)  he  pro 
poses  to  substitute  some  other. 

This  retaining  of  the  old  diction  in  all  places  where 
a  higher  interest,  that,  namely,  of  being  understood 


ON   THE   ENGLISH   OF   OUR   VERSION.  37 

by  all,  did  not  imperatively  require  the  substitution 
of  another  phrase,  would  be  most  needful,  not  merely 
for  the  reverence  which  attaches  to  it,  and  for  the 
avoiding  every  unnecessary  disturbance  in  the  minds 
of  the  people,  but  for  the  shunning  of  another  and  not 
a  trivial  harm.  Were  the  substitution  of  new  for  old 
carried  out  to  any  large  extent,  this  most  injurious 
consequence  would  follow,  that  our  Translation  would 
be  no  longer  of  a  piece,  not  any  more  one  web  and 
woof,  but  in  part  English  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
in  part  English  of  the  nineteenth.  Now,  granting  that 
nineteenth-century  English  is  as  good  as  seventeenth, 
of  which  there  may  be  very  serious  doubts,  still  they 
are  not  the  same ;  the  differences  between  them  are 
considerable :  some  of  these  we  can  explain,  others 
we  must  be  content  only  to  feel.  But  even  those  who 
could  not  explain  any  part  of  them  would  yet  be  con 
scious  of  them,  would  be  pained  by  a  sense  of  incon 
gruity,  of  new  patches  on  an  old  garment,  and  the 
one  failing  to  agree  with  the  other.  Now,  all  will 
admit  that  it  is  of  vast  importance  that  the  Bible  of 
the  nation  should  be  a  book  capable  of  being  read 
with  delight — I  mean  quite  apart  from  its  higher 
claim  as  God's  Word  to  be  read  with  devoutest  rev 
erence  and  honor.  It  can  be  so  read  now.  But  the 
sense  of  pleasure  in  it,  I  mean  merely  as  the  first 
English  classic,  would  be  greatly  impaired  by  any 
alterations  which  seriously  affected  the  homogeneous- 
ness  of  its  style.  And  this,  it  must  be  remembered, 


38  ON   THE   ENGLISH    OF   OUR   VERSION. 

is  a  danger  altogether  new,  one  which  did  not  at  all 
beset  the  former  revisions.  From  Tyndale's  first  edi 
tion  of  his  New  Testament  in  1526  to  the  Authorized 
Version  there  elapsed  in  all  but  eighty-five  years,  and 
this  period  was  divided  into  four  or  five  briefer  por 
tions  by  Cranmer's,  Coverdale's,  the  Geneva,  the  Bish 
ops'  Bible,  which  were  published  in  the  interval  be 
tween  one  date  and  the  other.  But  from  the  date  of 
King  James's  Translation  (1611)  to  the  present  day 
nearly  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  have  elapsed  ;  and 
more  than  this  time,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  will  have  elapsed 
before  any  steps  are  actually  taken  in  this  matter. 
When  we  argue  for  the  facilities  of  revision  now  from 
the  facilities  of  revision  on  previous  occasions,  we 
must  not  forget  that  the  long  period  of  time  which 
has  elapsed  since  our  last  revision,  so  very  much 
longer  than  lay  between  any  of  the  preceding,  has  in 
many  ways  immensely  complicated  the  problem,  has 
made  many  precautions  necessary  now  which  would 
have  been  superfluous  then.* 

*  It  is  an  eminent  merit  in  the  Revision  of  the  Authorized  Version 
by  Five  Clergymen,  of  which  the  Gospel  of  St.  John  and  the  Epistle  to 
the  Romans  have  already  appeared,  that  they  have  not  merely  urged 
by  precept,  but  shown  by  proof,  that  it  is  possible  to  revise  our  Ver 
sion,  and  at  the  same  time  to  preserve  unimpaired  the  character  of 
the  English  in  which  it  is  composed.  Nor  is  it  only  on  this  account 
that  we  may  accept  this  work  as  by  far  the  most  hopeful  contribution 
which  we  have  yet  had  to  the  solution  of  a  great  and  difficult  problem ; 
but  also  as  showing  that  where  reverent  hands  touch  that  building, 
which  some  would  have  wholly  pulled  down  that  it  might  be  wholly 
built  up  again,  these  find  only  the  need  of  here  and  there  replacing  a 
stone  which  had  been  incautiously  built  into  the  wall,  or  which,  trust 
worthy  material  once,  has  now  yielded  to  the  lapse  and  injury  of  time, 


ON   THE   ENGLISH    0V   OUR   VERSION.  39 

Certainly,  too,  when  we  read  what  manner  of  stuff 
is  offered  to  us  in  exchange  for  the  language  of  our 
Authorized  Version,  we  learn  to  prize  it  more  highly 
than  ever.  Indeed,  we  hardly  know  the  immeasura 
ble  worth  of  its  religious  diction  till  we  set  this  side 
by  side  with  what  oftentimes  is  proffered  in  its  room. 
Thus,  not  to  speak  of  some  suggested  changes  which 
would  be  positively  offensive,  we  should  scarcely  be 
gainers  in  perspicuity  or  accuracy,  if  for  James  i.  8, 
which  now  stands,  "  A  double-minded  man  is  unstable 
in  all  his  ways,"  we  were  to  read,  "  A  man  unsteady 
in  his  opinions  is  unconstant  in  all  his  actions"  (We- 
myss).  Neither  would  the  gain  be  very  evident,  if, 
"  I  have  a  baptism  to  be  baptized  with"  (Luke  xii.  50) 
gave  place  to,  "  I  have  an  immersion  to  undergo."  — 
"  Wrath  to  come"  we  may  well  be  contented  to  re 
tain,  though  we  are  offered  "  impending  vengeance" 
in  its  place.  "  In  chambering  and  wantonness"  would 
not  be  improved,  even  though  we  were  to  substitute 
for  it  "  in  unchaste  and  immodest  gratifications."  Dr. 
Campbell's  work  "  On  the  Four  Gospels"  contains  dis 
sertations  which  have  their  value ;  yet  the  advantage 
would  not  be  great  of  superseding  Mark  vi.  19,  20,  as 
it  now  stands,  by  the  following :  "  This  roused  Hero- 


while  they  leave  the  building  itself  in  its  main  features  and  framework 
untouched.  Differing  as  the  Revisers  occasionally  do  even  among 
themselves,  they  will  not  wonder  that  others  sometimes  differ  from 
the  conclusions  at  which  they  have  arrived ;  but  there  can,  I  think, 
be  no  difference  upon  this  point,  namely,  that  their  work  deserves  the 
most  grateful  recognition  of  the  Church. 


40       ON  THE  ENGLISH  OF  OUR  VERSION. 

dias'  resentment,  who  would  have  killed  John ;  but 
could  not,  because  Herod  respected  him,  and,  know 
ing  him  to  be  a  just  and  holy  man,  protected  him,  and 
did  many  things  recommended  by  him,  and  heard  him 
with  pleasure."  I  have  only  seen  quoted  in  a  news 
paper,  and,  therefore,  it  may  possibly  be  a  jest,  that 
in  the  American  Bible  Union's  Improved  Version  such 
improvements  as  the  following  occur :  "  That  in  the 
name  of  Jesus,  every  knee  should  bend  of  heavenlies, 
and  of  earthlies,  and  of  infernals"  (Phil.  ii.  4)  ;  "  Ye 
have  put  on  the  young  man"  (Col.  iii.  10).  Of  Har- 
wood's  Literal  Translation  of  the  New  Testament 
(London,  1768)  and  the  follies  of  it,  not  far  from 
blasphemous,  it  is  unnecessary  to  give  any  example. 

When  we  consider,  not  the  words  of  our  Version 
one  by  one,  but  the  words  in  combination,  as  they  are 
linked  to  one  another,  and  by  their  position  influence 
and  modify  one  another ;  in  short,  the  accidence  and 
the  syntax,  this,  being  good,  is  yet  not  so  good  as  the 
selection  of  the  words  themselves.  There  are,  un 
doubtedly,  inaccuracies  and  negligences  here.  Bishop 
Lowth  long  ago  pointed  out  several  faults  in  the  gram 
matical  construction  of  sentences  ;*  and  although  it 
must  be  confessed  that  now  and  then  he  is  hypercriti 
cal,  and  that  his  objections  will  not  stand,  yet  others 
which  he  has  not  pressed  would  be  found  to  supply 
the  place  of  those  which  must  therefore  be  withdrawn. 

*  In  his  Short  Introduction  to  English  Grammar. 


ON   THE   ENGLISH   OP   OUR   VERSION.  41 

But  here,  too,  and  before  entering  on  this  matter, 
there  is  room  for  the  same  observation  which  was 
made  in  respect  of  the  words  of  our  Translation. 
Many  charges  have  here  also  been  lightly,  some  igno- 
rantly,  made.  Our  Translators  now  and  then  appear 
ungrammatical,  because  they  give  us,  as  they  needs 
must,  the  grammar  of  their  own  day,  and  not  the 
grammar  of  ours.  It  is  curious  to  find  Bishop  New- 
come*  taking  them  to  task  for  using  '  his'  or  '  her,' 
where  they  ought  to  have  used  '  its ;'  as  in  such  pas 
sages  as  the  following :  "  But  if  the  salt  have  lost  his 
savor,  wherewith  shall  it  be  salted  ?"  (Matt.  v.  13.) 
"  Charity  doth  not  behave  itself  unseemly,  seeketh  not 
her  own."  (1  Cor.  xiii.  5  ;  cf.  Rev.  xxii.  2.)  "  This 
sometimes,"  he  says,  "  introduces  strange  confusion." 
But  this  confusion,  as  he  calls  it,  when  they  wrote  was 
inevitable,  or  at  least  could  only  be  avoided  by  cir 
cumlocutions,  as  by  the  use  of  '  thereof.'  Nor,  more 
over,  did  this  usage  present  itself  as  any  confusion  of 
masculine  and  neuter,  or  of  personal  and  impersonal, 
at  the  time  when  our  Translators  wrote  ;  for  then  that 
very  serviceable,  but  often  very  inharmonious,  little 
word,  4  its,'  as  a  genitive  of  *  it,'  had  not  appeared,  or 
had  only  just  appeared,  timidly  and  rarely,  in  the 
language,!  an(*  '  his'  was  quite  as  much  a  neuter  as  a 
masculine. 

*  Historical  View  of  the  English  Biblical  Translations.  Dublin,  1 792, 
p.  289. 

1 1  have  elsewhere  entered  on  this  matter  somewhat  more  fully 
(English  Past  and  Present,  3d  ed.,  p.  124  sqq.),  and  have  there  ob- 


42  ON   THE    ENGLISH    OF   OUH    VERSION. 

Others  have  in  other  points  found  fault  with  the 
grammar  of  our  Version,  where,  in  like  manner,  they 
"  have  condemned  the  guiltless,"  their  objections  fre 
quently  serving  only  to  reveal  their  own  unacquaint- 
ance  with  the  history  and  past  evolution  of  their  na 
tive  tongue  —  an  unacquairitance  excusable  enough  in 
others,  yet  hardly  in  those  who  set  themselves  up  as 
critics  and  judges  in  so  serious  and  solemn  a  matter 
as  is  here  brought  into  judgment.  This  ignorance  is, 
indeed,  sometimes  surprising.  Thus.  Wemyss*  com 
plains  of  a  fals,e  concord  at  Rev.  xviii.  17  :  "  For  in 
one  hour  so  great  riches  is  come  to  nought."  He  did 
not  know  that  '  riches'  is  properly  no  plural  at  all, 
and  the  final  '  s'  in  it  no  sign  of  a  plural,  but  belong 
ing  to  the  word,  in  its  French  form,  '  richesse,'  and 
that '  riches'  has  only  become  a  plural,  as  '  alms'  and 
'  eaves'  are  becoming  such,  through  our  forgetfulness 
of  this  fact.  When  Wiclif  wants  a  plural,  he  adds 
another  '  s,'  and  writes  '  richessis'  (Roru.  ii.  4  ;  Jam. 
v.  2).  It  is  true  that  at  the  time  when  our  Version 

served  that  'its'  nowhere  occurs  in  our  Authorized  Version.  Lev. 
xx.  5  ("of  its  own  accord")  has  been  since  urged  as  invalidating  my 
assertion ;  but  does  not  do  so  really  :  for  reference  to  the  first,  or  in 
deed  to  any  of  the  early  editions,  will  show  that  in  them  the  passage 
stood  "  of  it  own  accord."  Nor  is  '  it*  here  a  misprint  for  '  its ;'  for 
we  have  exactly  the  same  "by  it  own  accord"  in  the  Geneva  Version, 
Acts  xii.  10 ;  and  in  other  English  books  of  the  beginning  of  the  sev 
enteenth  century,  which  never  employ  'its.'  There  is  a  fuller  treat 
ment  of  this  word  and  the  first  appearance  of  it,  in  Mr.  Craik's  very 
valuable  work,  On  the  English  of  Shakespeare,  p.  91,  and  I  should 
desire  what  I  have  written  on  the  matter  to  be  read  with  the  correc 
tions  which  he  supplies. 

*  Biblical  Gleanings,  p.  212. 


ON   THE   ENGLISH    OF   OUR   VERSION.  43 

was  made,  ( riches'  was  already  commonly  regarded 
and  dealt  with  as  a  plural ;  it  is  there  generally  so 
used,  and  therefore  it  would  have  been  better  if,  for 
consistency's  sake,  they  had  so  used  it  here  ;  but  there 
is  no  grammatical  error  in  the  case,  any  more  than 
when  Shakespeare  writes,  "  The  riches  of  the  ship  is 
come  to  shore."  The  same  objector  finds  fault  with 
"  asked  an  alms"  (Acts  iii.  3),  and  suggests,  "  asked 
some  alms"  in  its  room,  evidently  on  the  same  as 
sumption  that  '  alms'  is  a  plural.  Neither  can  he 
tolerate  our  rendering  of  1  Tim.  v.  23  :  "  Use  a  little 
wine  for  thine  often  infirmities ;"  but  complains  of 
4  often,'  an  adverb,  here  used  as  though  it  were  an 
adjective,  while,  indeed,  the  adjectival  use  of  *  oft,' 
'  often,'  surviving  still  in  '  0/iJtimes,'  '  o/itewtimes,'  is 
the  primary,  the  adverbial  merely  secondary. 

But  all  frivolous,  ungrounded  objections  set  aside, 
there  will  still  remain  a  certain  number  of  passages 
where  the  grammatical  construction  is  capable  of  im 
provement.  In  general  the  very  smallest  alteration 
will  set  everything  right.  These  are  some : — 

Heb.v.  8. — "  Though  He  were  a  Son,  yet  learned 
He  obedience  by  the  things  which  He  suffered."  If 
the  Apostle  had  been  putting  a  possible  hypothetical 
case,  this  would  be  correct ;  for  example,  "  Though 
He  slay  me,  yet  will  I  trust  in  Him"  (Job  xiii.  15), 
is  without  fault.  But  here,  on  the  contrary,  he  is 
assuming  a  certain  conceded  fact,  that  Christ  was  a 
Son,  and  though  He  was  such,  yet  in  this  way  of  suf- 


44  ON   THE   ENGLISH    OF   OUR   VERSION. 

fering  He  learned  obedience.  '  Though'  is  here  a 
concessive,  conditional  particle,  the  Latin  '  etsi'  or 
'  etiamsi'  as  followed  by  an  indicative,  and  should 
have  itself  been  followed  by  such  in  our  Version.  It 
ought  to  be,  "  Though  He  was  a  Son,"  &c. 

John  ix.  31.  —  "If  any  man  be  a  worshipper  of 
God,  and  doeth  his  will,  him  He  heareth."  As  in  the 
passage  just  noted,  we  have  a  subjunctive  instead  of 
an  indicative,  an  actual  objective  fact  dealt  with  as 
though  it  were  only  a  possible  subjective  conception, 
so  here  we  have  just  the  converse,  an  indicative  in 
stead  of  a  subjunctive.  It  is  true  that  in  modern 
English  the  subjunctive  is  so  rapidly  disappearing, 
that  "  If  any  man  doeth  his  will"  might  very  well 
pass.  Still  it  was  an  error  when  our  Translators 
wrote ;  and  there  is,  at  any  rate,  an  inconcinnity  in 
allowing  the  indicative  6  doeth,'  in  the  second  clause 
of  the  sentence,  to  follow  the  subjunctive  '  be'  in  the 
first,  both  equally  depending  upon  'if;'  one  would 
gladly,  therefore,  see  a  return  to  "do  his  will,'1  which 
stood  in  Tyndale's  version. 

Matt.  xvi.  15.  —  "  Whom  say  ye  that  I  am  ?"  The 
English  is  faulty  here.  It  ought  plainly  to  be,  "  Who 
say  ye  that  I  am  ?"  as  is  evident  if  only  ;  who'  be  put 
last :  "  Ye  say  that  I  am  who  ?"  The  Latin  idiom, 
"  Quern  me  esse  dicitis  ?"  probably  led  our  Transla 
tors,  and  all  who  went  before  them,  astray.  Yet  the 
cases  are  not  in  the  least  parallel.  If  the  English 
idiom  had  allowed  the  question  to  assume  this  shape, 


ON   THE   ENGLISH    OP   OUR   VEKSION.  45 

"  Whom  say  ye  me  to  be  ?"  then  the  Latin  form  would 
have  been  a  true  parallel,  and  also  a  safe  guide ;  the 
accusative  '  whom?  not,  indeed,  as  governed  by  i  say,' 
but  as  corresponding  to  the  accusative  '  me?  being 
then  the  only  correct  case,  as  the  nominative  '  who,' 
to  answer  to  the  nominative  i  I,'  is  the  only  correct 
one  in  the  passage  as  it  now  stands.  The  mistake 
repeats  itself  on  several  occasions :  thus,  at  Matt, 
xvi.  13 ;  Mark  viii.  27,  29 ;  Luke  ix.  18,  20 ;  Acts 
xiii.  25. 

Heb.  ix.  5.  —  "  And  over  it  the  Cherubims  of  glory." 
But  '  Cherubim'  being  already  plural,  it  is  excess  of 
expression  to  add  another,  an  English  plural,  to  the 
Hebrew,  which  our  Translators  on  this  one  occasion 
of  the  word's  occurrence  in  the  New  Testament,  and 
constantly  in  the  Old.  have  done.  "  Cherubi^s  of 
glory,"  as  it  is  in  the  Geneva  and  Rheims  versions,  is 
intelligible  and  quite  unobjectionable.  The  Hebrew 
singular  is  then  dealt  with  as  a  naturalized  English 
word,  forming  an  English  plural ;  just  as  there  would 
be  nothing  to  object  to  '  automatons'  or  c  terminuses,' 
which  ultimately,  no  doubt,  will  be  the  plurals  of 
'  automaton'  and  '  terminus ;'  but  there  would  be  much 
to  i  autornatas'  or  '  terminis,'  or  to  *  erratas,'  though, 
strangely  enough,  we  find  this  in  Jeremy  Taylor,  as 
we  do  '  synonymas'  in  Mede.  It  might  be  free  to  use 
either  '  geniuses'  or  4  genii'  as  the  plural  of  '  genius' 
(we  do,  in  fact,  employ  both,  though  in  different 
senses),  but  not  '  geniis ;'  and  it  is  exactly  this  sort 
of  error  into  which  our  Translators  have  here  fallen. 


46       ON  THE  ENGLISH  OF  OUR  VERSION. 

Rev.  xxi.  12.  —  "  And  had  a  wall  great  and  high." 
The  verb  <  had'  is  here  without  a  nominative.  All 
that  is  necessary  is  to  return  to  Wiclif 's  translation : 
"  And  it  had  a  wall  great  and  high." 

Again,  we  much  regret  the  frequent  use  of  adjec 
tives  ending  in  '  ly,'  as  though  they  were  adverbs. 
This  termination,  being  that  of  so  great  a  number  of 
our  adverbs,  easily  lends  itself  to  the  mistake,  and  at 
the  same  time  often  serves  to  conceal  it.  Thus,  our 
Translators  at  1  Cor.  xiii.  5  say  of  charity,  that  it 
"  doth  not  behave  itself  unseemly"  Now  this,  at  first 
hearing,  does  not  sound  to  many  as  an  error,  because 
the  final  '  ly'  of  the  adjective  '  unseemly'  causes  it  to 
pass  with  them  as  though  it  were  an  adverb.  But 
substitute  another  equivalent  adjective ;  say,  "  doth 
not  behave  itself  improper"  or  "  doth  not  behave 
itself  'unbefitting"  and  the  violation  of  the  laws  of 
grammar  makes  itself  felt  at  once.  Compare  Tit.  ii. 
12  :  "  soberly,  righteously,  and  godly  in  this  present 
world."  It  ought  to  be  c  godlily'  here,  as  '  unseem- 
lily'  in  the  other  passage ;  or  if  this  repetition  of  the 
final  c  ly'  is  unpleasing  to  the  ear,  as  indeed  it  is,  then 
some  other  word  should  be  sought.  The  error  recurs 
in  2  Tim.  iii.  12 ;  Jude  15 ;  and  is  not  unfrequent  in 
the  Prayer  Book.  Thus,  we  find  it  in  the  thirty-sixth 
Article :  "  We  decree  all  such  to  be  rightly,  orderly, 
and  lawfully  consecrated."* 

*  It  is  carious  to  note  how  frequent  the  errors  are  arising  from 
the  same  cause.     Thus,  I  remember  meeting  in  Fox's  Book  of  Mar- 


ON   THE    ENGLISH    OF   OUR    VERSION.  47 

Should  a  revision  of  our  Version  ever  be  attempted, 
it  seems  to  me  that  the  same  principle  should  rule  in 
dealing  with  archaic  forms  as  I  have  sought  to  lay 
down  in  respect  of  archaic  words.  Nothing  but  ne 
cessity  should  provoke  alteration.  Thus,  there  can 
be  no  question  that  our  old  English  prseterites, '  clave,' 
'  drave,' '  sware,' <  brake,' '  strake,'  should  stand.  They 
are  as  good  English  now  as  they  were  two  centuries 
and  a  half  ago  :  they  create  no  perplexity  in  the  minds 
of  any ;  while  at  the  same  time  they  profitably  differ 
ence  the  language  of  Scripture  from  the  language  of 
common  and  every-day  life.  But  it  is  otherwise,  as 
it  seems  to  me,  with  archaisms  which  are  in  positive 
opposition  to  the  present  usage  of  the  English  tongue. 
Thus,  '  his'  and  '  her'  should  be  replaced  by  <  its,'  at 
such  passages  as  Matt.  v.  13  ;  Mark  ix.  50  ;  Luke  xiv. 
34  ;  Rev.  xxii.  2  ;  1  Cor.  xiii.  5  ;  which  might  be  done 
almost  without  exciting  the  least  observation  ;  so  also 
6  which'  by  '  who,'  wherever  a  person  and  not  a  thing 
is  referred  to.  This,  too,  might  be  easily  done,  for 

tt/rs  (I  have  not  the  exact  reference)  the  words,  "if  this  be  perpend." 
Here  it  is  clear  that  Fox  was  for  the  moment  deceived  by  the  termi 
nation  of  'perpend/  so  like  the  usual  termination  of  the  past  parti 
ciple;  and  did  not  observe  that  he  ought  to  have  written,  "if  this  be 
perpended."  In  our  own  day  Tennyson  treats  'eaves'  as  if  the  final 
's'  were  the  sign  of  the  plural,  which  being  dismissed,  one  might 
have  'eave'  for  a  singular;  and  he  writes  the  "cottage  eave."  But 
'eaves'  ('efese'  in  the  Anglo-Saxon)  is  itself  the  singular.  With  the 
same  momentary  inadvertence  Lord  Macaulay  deals  with  the  final  '  s' 
in  '  Cyclops'  as  though  it  were  the  plural  sign,  and  speaks  in  one  of 
the  late  volumes  of  his  history  of  a  '  Cyclop ;'  and  pages  might  be 
filled  with  mistakes  which  have  thdr  origin  in  similar  causes. 


48  ON   THE   ENGLISH   OP   OUR  VERSION. 

our  Translators  have  no  certain  law  here ;  for  instance, 
in  the  last  chapter  of  the  Romans,  '  which'  occurs  seven 
times,  referring  to  a  person  or  persons,  '  who'  exactly 
as  often.  The  only  temptation  to  retain  this  use  of 
'  which'  would  be  to  mark  by  its  aid  the  distinction 
between  oV-n^  and  fe,  so  hard  to  seize  in  English.  At 
the  same  time  a  retention  with  this  view  would  itself 
involve  many  changes,  seeing  that  our  Translators  did 
not  turn  <  which'  to  this  special  service,  but  for  <fc  and 
o'0Vi£  employed  '  who'  and  (  which'  quite  promiscuously. 
But  upon  this  part  of  my  subject  that  which  has  been 
said  must  suffice. 


ON  SOME  QUESTIONS   OF  TRANSLATION.  49 


CHAPTER   III. 

ON   SOME   QUESTIONS   OF  TRANSLATION. 

How  many  questions  at  once  present  themselves, 
many  among  them  of  an  almost  insuperable  difficulty 
in  their  solution,  so  soon  as  it  is  attempted  to  transfer 
any  great  work  from  one  language  into  another !  Let 
it  be  only  some  high  and  original  work  of  human  ge 
nius,  the  Divina  Commedia,  for  instance,  and  how 
many  problems,  at  first  sight  seeming  insoluble,  and 
which  only  genius  can  solve,  even  it  being  often  con 
tent  to  do  so  imperfectly,  to  evade  rather  than  to 
solve  them,  at  once  offer  themselves  to  the  translator  !* 
The  loftier  and  deeper,  the  more  original  a  poem  or 
other  composition  may  be,  the  more  novel  and  unusual 
the  sphere  in  which  it  moves,  by  so  much  the  more 
these  difficulties  will  multiply.  They  can  therefore 
nowhere  be  so  many  and  so  great  as  in  the  rendering 

*  Only  to  few  translators,  and  to  them  only  on  rare  occasions,  is  it 
given  to  deserve  the  magnificent  praise  which  Jerome  gives  to  Hilary, 
and  to  his  translations  from  the  Greek  (Ep.,  33) :  "  Quasi  captivos 
scnsus  in  suam  Hngnam  inctoris  jure  transposuit ." 

3 


50  ON   SOME   QUESTIONS   OF  TRANSLATION. 

of  that  Book  which  is  sole  of  its  kind  ;  which  reaches 
far  higher  heights  and  far  deeper  depths  than  any 
other ;  which  has  words  of  God  and  not  of  man  for 
its  substance  ;  while  the  importance  of  success  or  fail 
ure,  with  the  far-reaching  issues  which  will  follow  on 
the  one  or  the  other,  sinks  in  each  other  case  into  ab 
solute  insignificance  as  compared  with  their  impor 
tance  here. 

Thus,  the  missionary  translator,  if  he  be  at  all  aware 
of  the  awful  implement  which  he  is  wielding,  of  the 
tremendous  crisis  in  a  people's  spiritual  life  which  has 
arrived,  when  their  language  is  first  made  the  vehicle 
of  revealed  truths,  will  often  tremble  at  the  work  he 
has  in  hand ;  tremble  lest  he  should  be  permanently 
lowering  or  confusing  the  whole  religious  life  of  a 
people,  by  choosing  a  meaner  and  letting  go  a  nobler 
word  for  the  setting  forth  of  some  leading  truth  of 
redemption.  Even  those  who  are  wholly  ignorant  of 
Chinese  can  yet  perceive  how  vast  the  spiritual  inter 
ests  which  are  at  stake  in  China,  how  much  will  be 
won,  or  how  much  lost,  for  the  whole  spiritual  life  of 
that  people,  it  may  be  for  ages  to  come,  according  as 
the  right  or  the  wrong  word  is  selected  by  the  trans 
lators  of  the  Scriptures  into  Chinese  for  expressing  the 
true  and  the  living  God.*  As  many  of  us  as  are  igno 
rant  of  the  language  can  be  no  judges  in  the  contro 
versy  whicli  on  this  matter  is  being  carried  on,  but 

*  See  the  Kev.  S.  C.  Malan's  Who  is  God  in  China,  Shin  or  Shang- 
tef 


ON   SOME   QUESTIONS   OF  TRANSLATION.  51 

we  can  all  feel  how  enormous  the  interests  which  are 
at  stake. 

And  even  where  the  issues  are  not  so  vast  and 
awful  as  in  this  case,  how  much  may  turn  on  having 
or  not  having  the  appropriate  word !  Very  often 
there  is  none  such ;  and  some  common,  some  profane 
word  has  to  be  seized,  and  set  apart,  and  sanctified, 
and  gradually  to  be  impregnated  with  a  higher  and  ho 
lier  meaning  than  any  which,  before  its  adoption  into 
this  sacred  service,  it  knew.  Sometimes,  when  the  trans 
fer  is  being  made  into  a  language  which  has  already 
received  a  high  development,  the  embarrassment  will 
not  be  this,  but  the  opposite  to  this.  Two,  or  it  may 
be  more,  words  will  present  themselves  —  each  inade 
quate,  yet  each  with  its  own  advantages,  so  that  it 
shall  be  exceedingly  difficult  for  the  most  skilful  mas 
ter  of  language  to  determine  which  ought  to  be  pre 
ferred.  Thus,  it  was  not  indifferent  whether  Ao'yof 
should  be  rendered  in  ecclesiastical  Latin  ;  Sermo'  or 
<  Yerbum.'  The  fact  that  <  Yerbum'  has  from  the  be 
ginning  been  the  predominant  rendering,  and  that 
1  Yerbum'  is  a  neuter  impersonal,  possessing  no  such 
mysterious  duplicity  of  meaning  as  Ao'yos,  which  is  at 
once  the  '  Word'  and  the  '  Reason,'  has,  I  do  not  hesi 
tate  to  affirm,  modified  the  whole  development  of  Latin 
theology  in  respect  of  the  personal  "  Word  of  God." 
I  do  not,  indeed,  believe  that  the  advantages  which 
in  '  Yerbum'  are  lost,  would  have  been  secured  by  the 
choosing  of  '  Sermo'  rather  ;  any  gains  from  this  would 


52  ON   SOME   QUESTIONS   OF   TRANSLATION. 

have  been  accompanied  by  more  than  countervailing 
losses.  I  can  not,  therefore,  doubt  that  the  Latin 
Church  did  wisely  and  well  in  preferring  *  Verbum' 
to  i  Sermo  ;'  indeed,  it  ultimately  quite  disallowed  the 
latter ;  but  still  the  doubts  and  hesitation  which  ex 
isted  for  some  time  upon  this  point*  illustrate  well  the 
difficulty  'of  which  I  am  speaking. 

Or  take  another  question,  not  altogether  unlike 
this.  Was  the  old  '  poenitentia,'  or  the  '  resipiscen- 
tia,'  which  some  of  the  Reformers  sought  to  introduce 
in  its  room,  the  better  rendering  of  jmsravoin  ?  should 
fAsravosrTe  be  rendered  '  poenitete'  or  '  resipiscite'  ?f 
The  Roman  Catholic  theologians  found  great  fault 
with  Beza,  that  instead  of  the  '  poenitentia,'  hallowed 
by  long  ecclesiastical  usage,  and  having  acquired  a 
certain  prescriptive  right  by  its  long  employment  in 
the  Vulgate,  he,  in  his  translation  of  Scripture,  sub 
stituted  i  resipiscentia.'  Now  Beza,  and  those  who 
stood  with  him  in  this  controversy,  were  assuredly 
right  in  replying,  that  while  a  serious  displeasure  on 
the  sinner's  part  at  his  past  life  is  an  important  ele 
ment  in  all  true  peTuvoia  or  repentance,  still  '  poeniten 
tia'  is  at  fault,  in  that  it  brings  out  nothing  but  this, 
leaves  the  changed  mind  for  the  time  to  come,  which 
is  the  central  idea  of  the  original  word,  altogether 
unexpressed  and  untouched ;  that,  moreover, '  resipi- 

*  See  Petavius,  De  Trin.,  vi.,  1.  4. 

t  See  Fred.  Spanheim's  Dub.  Evangelica,  pars  3a,  dub.  vii. ;  Camp 
bell,  On  the  Four  Gospels,  vol.  i.,  p.  292,  sqq. 


ON   SOME   QUESTIONS    OF   TRANSLATION.  53 

scentia'  was  no  such  novelty,  Lactantius  having  al 
ready  shown  the  way  in  a  rendering  with  which  now 
so  much  fault  was  found.  Taking  his  ground  rigidly 
on  etymology,  Beza  was  quite  right ;  but  it  was  also 
true,  which  he  did  not  take  account  of,  that  fxeravoia, 
even  before  it  had  been  assumed  into  scriptural  usage, 
and  much  more  after,  had  acquired  a  superadded 
sense  of  regret  for  the  past,  or  '  hadiwist'  (had-I-wist), 
as  our  ancestors  called  it ;  which,  if  '  pcenitentia' 
seemed  to  embody  too  exclusively,  his  '  resipiscentia,' 
making  at  least  as  serious  an  omission,  hardly  embod 
ied  at  all.  On  the  whole,  I  can  not  but  think  that  it 
would  have  been  better  to  leave  '  pcenitentia'  undis 
turbed,  while  yet  how  much  on  either  side  there  was 
here  to  be  urged ! 

It  may  be  worth  while  to  consider  a  little  in  what 
ways  our  own  Translators  have  sought  to  overcome 
some  of  these  difficulties  of  translation,  which  have 
met  them,  as  they  have  met  all  others,  so  to  speak, 
on  the  threshold  of  their  work.  Of  course,  wherever 
they  acquiesced  in  preceding  solutions  of  these  diffi 
culties,  they  adopted  and  made  them  their  own  ;  and 
we  have  a  right  to  deal  with  them  as  responsible  for 
such. 

Let  us  take,  first,  a  question  which  in  all  transla 
tion  is  constantly  recurring — this,  namely  :  In  what 
manner  ought  technical  words  of  the  one  language, 
which  have  no  exact  equivalents  in  the  other,  to  be 
rendered ;  measures,  for  instance,  of  wet  and  dry,  as 


54  ON    SOME    QUESTIONS    OF   TRANSLATION. 


the  fiaros  and  xopo?  of  Luke  xvi.  6,  7  ;  the  pei-pii-fa  of 
John  ii.  6  ;  coins,  such  as  the  <5»^pa^fxov  of  Matt.  xvii. 
24  ;  the  rfrar*^  of  Matt.  xvii.  27  ;  the  tya^  of  Luke 
xv.  8  ;  titles  of  honor  and  authority  which  have  long 
since  ceased  to  be,  and  to  which,  at  best,  only  remote 
resemblances  now  exist,  as  the  /^a^are^  and  vswxopo^ 
of  Acts  xix.  35  ;  the  'A<r<ap^aj  of  the  same  chapter, 
ver.  31  ;  the  AvMifaros  of  Acts  xiii.  7  ? 

The  ways  in  which  such  words  may  be  dealt  with 
reduce  themselves  to  four,  and  our  Translators,  by 
turns,  have  recourse  to  them  all.  The  first,  which  is 
only  possible  when  the  etymology  of  the  word  is  clear 
and  transparent,  is  to  seize  this,  and  to  produce  a  new 
technical  word  which  shall  utter  over  again  in  the 
language  of  the  translation  what  the  original  word 
uttered  to  its  own.  This  course  was  chosen  when 
they  rendered  /Aps.os  irayos,  "  Mars-hill"  (Acts  xvii. 
22),  AidoV^uTov,  <  the  Pavement'  (John  xix.  13)  ;  when 
Sir  John  Cheke  rendered  IxcM-oVa^o^,  *  hundreder' 
(Matt.  viii.  5),  tfsXTjvjaJo/xgvo^,  'mooned'  (Matt.  iv.  24). 
But  the  number  of  words  which  allow  of  this  repro 
duction  is  comparatively  small.  Of  many  the  etymol 
ogy  is  lost  ;  many  others  do  not  admit  the  formation 
of  a  corresponding  word  in  another  language.  This 
scheme,  therefore,  whatever  advantages  it  may  possess, 
can  of  necessity  be  very  sparingly  applied. 

Another  method,  then,  is  to  choose  some  generic 
word,  such  as  must  needs  exist  in  both  languages,  the 
genus  of  which  the  word  to  be  rendered  is  the  species, 


ON   SOME   QUESTIONS   OF   TRANSLATION.  55 

and,  without  attempting  any  more  accurate  designa 
tion,  to  employ  this.  Our  Translators  have  frequently 
taken  this  course  ;  they  have  done  so,  rendering  /3<x<r<>£, 
xo'pocr,  xc""f,  alike  by  <  measure'  (Luke  xvi.  6,7;  Rev. 
vi.  6),  with  no  endeavors  to  mark  the  capacity  of  the 
measure ;  fya;^  by  "  piece  of  silver"  (Luke  xv.  8), 
tfTa.Tfy  by  "  piece  of  money"  (Matt.  xvii.  27),  fatfaaros 
by  '  deputy'  (Acts  xiii.  8),  cVfaT^oj  by  'magistrates' 
(Acts  xvi.  2li),  fxayoi  by  "wise  men"  (Matt.  ii.  1). 
A  manifest  disadvantage  which  attends  this  course  is 
the  want  of  a  close  correspondence  between  the  origi 
nal  and  the  copy,  a  certain  vagueness  which  is  given 
to  the  latter,  with  the  obliteration  of  strongly-marked 
lines. 

Or,  thirdly,  they  may  seek  out  some  special  word 
in  the  language  into  which  the  translation  is  being 
made,  which  shall  be  more  or  less  an  approximative 
equivalent  for  that  in  whose  place  it  stands.  We 
have  two  not  very  happy  illustrations  of  this  scheme 
in  c  town-clerk,'  as  the  rendering  of  /pa^a-re^  (Acts 
xix.  35),  'Easter'  as  that  of  iToufya  (Acts  xii.  4). 
The  turning  of  "Agrees  into  <  Diana'  (Acts  xix.  24), 
of  'Epfi%  into  '  Mercurius'  (Acts  xiv.  12),  are,  in  fact, 
other  examples  of  the  same,  although  our  Translators 
themselves,  no  doubt,  were  not  aware  of  it,  seeing 
that  in  their  time  the  essential  distinction  between 
the  Greek  and  the  Italian  mythologies,  and  the  fact 
that  the  names  of  the  deities  in  the  former  were  only 
adapted  with  more  or  less  fitness  to  the  deities  of  the 


56  ON   SOME   QUESTIONS   OF  TRANSLATION. 

latter,  was  unknown  even  to  scholars.  This  method 
of  translating  has  its  own  serious  drawback,  that,  al 
though  it  often  gives  a  distinct  and  vigorous,  yet  it 
runs  the  danger  of  conveying  a  more  or  less  false, 
impression.  Except  by  a  very  singular  felicity,  and 
one  which  will  not  often  occur,  the  word  selected, 
while  it  conveys  some  truth,  must  also  convey  some 
error  bound  up  with  the  truth.  Thus,  xofyav-r^  is  not 
a  4  farthing'  (Mark  xii.  42),  nor  ^vap»ov  a  '  penny ' 
(Matt.  xx.  2),  nor  psrpr.rrs  a  '  firkin'  (John  ii.  6)  ; 
not,  I  mean,  our  farthing,  or  penny,  or  firkin.  So, 
too,  if  u  piece  of  money"  is  a  vague  translation  of 
fya^rj  (Luke  xv.  8),  Wiclif's  '  bezant'  and  Tyndale's 
4  grote'  involve  absolute  error.  Add  to  this  the  dan 
ger  that  the  tone  and  coloring  of  one  time  and  age 
may  thus  be  substituted  for  that  of  another,  of  the 
modern  world  for  the  ancient,  as  when  Holland,  in 
his  translation  of  Livy,  constantly  renders  "  Pontifex 
Maximus"  by  <  Archbishop,'  and  it  will  be  seen  that 
the  inconveniences  attending  this  course  are  not  small. 
There  remains  only  one  other  way  possible :  To 
take  the  actual  word  of  the  original,  and  to  transplant 
it  unchanged,  or  at  most  with  a  slight  change  in  the 
termination,  into  the  other  tongue,  in  the  trust  that 
time  and  use  will,  little  by  little,  cause  the  strange 
ness  of  it  to  disappear,  and  that  its  meaning  will  grad 
ually  be  acquired  even  by  the  unlearned  reader.  We 
have  done  this  in  respect  of  many  Hebrew  words  in 
the  Old  Testament,  as  <  Urim,'  '  Thummirn,'  c  epliod,' 


ON   SOME   QUESTIONS    OP   TRANSLATION.  57 

4  shekel,' '  cherub,' i  seraphim,' '  cor,' '  bath,'  '  ephah ;' 
and  with  some  Greek  in  the  New,  as  '  tetrarch,'  <  prose 
lyte,'  '  Paradise,'  'pentecost,' <  Messias ;'  or,  by  adopting 
these  words  from  preceding  translations  have  acqui 
esced  in  the  fitness  of  this  course.  The  disadvantage 
of  it  evidently  is,  that  in  many  cases  the  adopted 
word  continues  always  an  exotic  for  the  mass  of  the 
people  :  it  never  tells  its  own  story  to  them,  nor  be 
comes,  so  to  speak,  transparent  with  its  own  meaning. 

It  is  impossible  to  adhere  rigidly  and  constantly  to 
any  one  of  these  devices  for  representing  the  things 
of  one  condition  of  society  by  the  words  of  another ; 
they  must  all  in  their  turn  be  appealed  to,  even  as 
they  all  will  be  found  barely  sufficient.  Our  Trans 
lators  have  employed  them  all.  Their  inclination,  as 
compared  with  others,  is  perhaps  toward  the  second, 
the  least  ambitious,  but  at  the  same  time  the  safest, 
of  these  courses.  Once  or  twice  they  have  chosen  it 
when  one  of  the  other  ways  appears  manifestly  pref 
erable,  as  in  their  rendering  of  dvtLVaros  by  <  deputy' 
(Acts  xiii.  7,  8, 12),  '  proconsul'  being  ready  made  to 
their  hands,  with  Wiclif 's  authority  for  its  use. 

There  is  another  question,  doubtless  a  perplexing 
one,  which  our  Translators  had  to  solve ;  I  confess 
that  I  much  regret  the  solution  at  which  they  have 
arrived.  It  was  this :  how  should  they  deal  with  the 
Hebrew  proper  names  of  the  Old  Testament,  which 
had  gradually  assumed  a  form  somewhat  different  from 
their  original  on  the  lips  of  Greek-speaking  Jews,  and 


58  ON   SOME   QUESTIONS    OF   TRANSLATION. 

which  appeared  in  these  their  later  Hellenistic  forms 
in  the  New  Testament  ?  Should  they  bring  them  back 
to  their  original  shapes  ?  or  suffer  them  to  stand  in 
their  later  deflections  ?  Thus,  meeting  'HXiac  in  the 
Greek  text,  should  they  render  it '  Elias'  or  '  Elijah'  ? 
I  am  persuaded  that  for  the  purpose  of  keeping  vivid 
and  strong  the  relations  between  the  Old  and  New 
Testament  in  the  minds  of  the  great  body  of  English 
hearers  and  readers  of  Scripture,  they  should  have 
recurred  to  the  Old  Testament  names ;  which  are  not 
merely  the  Hebrew,  but  also  the  English  names,  and 
which,  therefore,  had  their  right  to  a  place  in  the 
English  text ;  that  'HXi'aj,  for  instance,  should  have 
been  translated  into  that  which  is  not  merely  its  He 
brew,  but  also  its  English  equivalent, '  Elijah,'  and  so 
with  the  others.  Let  us  just  seek  to  realize  to  our 
selves  the  difference  in  the  amount  of  awakened  atten 
tion  among  a  country  congregation,  which  Matt.  xvii. 
10  would  create,  if  it  were  read  thus,  "  And  his  dis 
ciples  asked  him,  saying,  Why  then  say  the  Scribes 
that  Elijah  must  first  come  ?"  as  compared  with  what 
it  now  is  likely  to  create.  As  it  is,  we  have  a  double 
nomenclature,  and  as  respects  the  unlearned  members 
of  the  Church,  a  sufficiently  perplexing  one,  for  a 
large  number  of  the  kings  and  prophets,  and  other 
personages,  of  the  earlier  Covenant.  Not  to  speak  of 
4  Elijah'  and  '  Elias,'  we  have  '  Elisha'  and  '  Eliseus,' 
'  Hosea'  and  '  Osee,'  '  Isaiah'  and  '  Esaias,'  <  Uzziah' 
and  '  Ozias,'  '  Hezekiah'  and  '  Ezechias,'  '  Korah'  and 


ON    SOME   QUESTIONS   OF   TRANSLATION.  59 

*  Core'  (commonly  pronounced  as  a  monosyllable  in 
our  National  Schools),  '  Rahab'  and  '  Rachab,'  and 
(most  unfortunate  of  all)  '  Joshua'  and  i  Jesus.' 

It  is,  indeed,  hardly  possible  to  exaggerate  the  con 
fusion  of  which  the  <  Jesus'  of  Heb.  iv.  8  must  be  the 
occasion  to  the  great  body  of  unlearned  English  read 
ers  and  hearers,  not  to  speak  of  a  slight  perplexity 
arising  from  the  same  cause  at  Acts  vii.  45.  The 
fourth  chapter  of  the  Hebrews  is  anyhow  hard  enough ; 
it  is  only  with  strained  attention  that  we  follow  the 
Apostle's  argument.  But  when  to  its  own  difficulty 
is  added  for  many  the  confusion  arising  from  the  fact 
that '  Jesus'  is  here  used,  not  of  Him  whose  name  is 
above  every  name,  but  of  the  son  of  Nun,  known  ev 
erywhere  in  the  Old  Testament  by  the  name  of  '  Josh 
ua,'  the  perplexity  to  many  becomes  hopeless.  It  is 
in  vain  that  our  Translators  have  added  in  the  mar 
gin,  "  that  is  Joshua ;"  for  all  practical  purposes  of 
avoiding  misconception  the  note,  in  most  of  our  Bibles 
omitted,  is  useless.  In  putting  '  Jesus'  here  they  have 
departed  from  all  our  preceding  Versions,  and  from 
many  foreign.  Even  if  they  had  counted  that  the 
letter  of  their  obligation  as  Translators,  which  yet  I 
can  not  think,  bound  them  to  this,  one  would  willingly 
have  here  seen  a  breach  of  the  letter,  that  so  they 
might  better  keep  the  spirit. 

There  is  another  difficulty,  entailing,  however,  no 
such  serious  consequences,  even  if  the  best  way  of 
meeting  it  is  not  chosen  :  how,  namely,  to  deal  with 


60  ON    SOME   QUESTIONS    OP   TRANSLATION. 

Greek  and  Latin  proper  names?  to  make  them  in 
their  terminations  English,  or  to  leave  them  as  we 
find  them  ?  Our  Translators  in  this  matter  adhere  to 
no  constant  rule.  It  is  not  merely  that  some  proper 
names  drop  their  classical  terminations,  as  '  Paul,' 
and  4  Saul,'  and  '  Urban,'*  while  others,  as  *  Sylvanus,' 
which  by  the  same  rule  should  be  '  Sylvan,'  and  '  Mer- 
curius,'  retain  it.  This  inconsistency  is  prevalent  in 
all  books  which  have  to  do  with  classical  antiquity. 
There  is  almost  no  Roman  history  in  which  i  Pompey' 
and  i  Antony'  do  not  stand  side  by  side  with  i  Augus 
tus'  and  '  Tiberius.'  Merivale's,  who  always  writes 
4  Pompeius'  and  '  Antonius,'  is  almost  the  only  excep 
tion  which  I  know.  If  this  were  all,  there  would  be 
little  to  find  fault  with  in  an  irregularity  almost,  if 
not  quite,  universal,  and  scarcely  to  be  avoided  with 
out  so  much  violence  done  to  usage  as  to  make  it 
doubtful  whether  the  gain  exceeded  the  loss.f  But 
in  our  Version  the  same  name  occurs  now  with  a  Latin 
ending,  now  with  an  English ;  as  though  it  were  now 
'  Pompeius'  and  now '  Pompey,'  now  'Antonius'  and  now 
4  Antony,'  in  the  same  volume,  or  even  the  same  page, 
of  some  Roman  history.  Consistency  in  such  details 
is  avowedly  difficult ;  and  the  difficulty  of  attaining  it 

*  So  it  ought  to  be  printed  in  our  modern  Bibles,  not  '  Urbane/ 
which  is  now  deceptive,  though  it  was  not  so  according  to  the  orthog 
raphy  of  1611;  it  suggests  a  trisyllable,  and  the  termination  of  a 
female  name.  It  is  Oip/?ai/oV  in  the  original. 

t  See  an  article  with  the  title,  Orthographic  Mutineers,  in  the  Mis 
cellaneous  Essays  of  De  Quincey. 


ON   SOME    QUESTIONS   OP   TRANSLATION.  61 

must  have  been  much  enhanced  by  the  many  hands 
that  were  engaged  in  our  Version.  But  it  is  strange 
that  not  in  different  parts  of  the  New  Testament  only, 
which  proceeded  from  different  hands,  we  have  now 
<  Marcus'  (Col.  iv.  10  ;  Philem.  24  ;  1  Pet.  v.  13),  and 
now  <  Mark'  (Acts  xii.  12,  25  ;  2  Tim.  iv.  11)  ;  now 
'  Jeremias'  (Matt.  xvi.  14),  and  now  <  Jeremy'  (Matt, 
ii.  17)  ;  now  *  Apollos'  (Acts  xviii.  24  ;  xix.  1),  now 
6  Apollo'*  (1  Cor.  iii.  22  ;  iv.  6)  ;  now  "  Simon,  son  of 
Jona"  (John  i.  42),  and  now  "  Simon,  son  of  Jonas" 
(John  xxi.  15,  16,  17)  ;  now  '  Timotheus'  (Acts  xvi. 
1),  and  now  'Timothy'  (Heb.  xiii.  21)  ;  but  in  the 
same  chapter  we  have  T^Msos  rendered  first c  Timothy* 
(2  Cor.  i.  1),  and  then  'Timotheus'  (ib.,  ver.  19). 
In  like  manner  the  inhabitants  of  Crete  (Kp^c)  are 
now  '  Cretes'  (Acts  ii.  11),  which  can  not  be  right, 
and  now  <  Cretians'  (Tit.  i.  12). 

There  are  other  inconsistencies  in  the  manner  of 
dealing  with  proper  names.  Thus,  lApeios  Uayos  is 
4  Areopagus'  at  Acts  xvii.  19,  while  three  verses  fur 
ther  on  the  same  is  rendered  '  Mars-hill.'  In  which 
of  these  ways  it  ought  to  have  been  translated  may 
very  fairly  be  a  question  ;  but  one  way  or  other,  once 
chosen,  should  have  been  adhered  to.  Then,  again, 
if  our  Translators  gave,  as  they  properly  did,  the  Latin 
termination  to  the  names  of  cities,  '  Ephesws,'  '  Mile- 

*  This  latter  form,  which  was  manifestly  inconvenient,  as  confound 
ing  the  name  of  an  eminent  Christian  teacher  with  that  of  a  heathen 
deity,  has  been  tacitly  removed  from  later  editions  of  our  Bible,  but 
existed  in  all  the  earlier. 


62  ON   SOME   QUESTIONS   OF  TRANSLATION. 

tws,'*  not '  Ephesos,'  '  Miletos,'  they  should  have  done 
this  throughout,  and  written  '  Assws'  (Acts  xx.  13, 14), 
and  '  Pergamws'  (Rev.  i.  11 ;  ii.  12),  not  '  Assos'  and 
i  Pergamos.'  In  regard  of  this  last,  it  would  have 
been  better  still  if  they  had  employed  the  form  '  Per- 
gamtttfi ;'  for  while  no  doubt  there  are  examples  of 
the  feminine  Us^ya^os  in  Greek  authors,!  they  are 
excessively  rare,  and  the  city's  name  is  almost  always 
written  TLe^ya^ov  in  Greek,  and  '  Pergamum'  in  Latin.  J 
It  is  the  carrying  of  one  rule  through  which  one 
desires  in  these  matters,  and  this  is  not  seldom  ex 
actly  what  we  miss.  Thus,  seeing  that  in  the  enu 
meration  of  the  precious  stones  which  constitute  the 
foundations  of  the  New  Jerusalem  (Rev.  xxi.  19,  20), 
all  with  the  exception  of  two,  which  are  capable  of 
receiving  an  English  termination,  do  receive  it,  '  beryl* 
and  not '  beryllus,' '  chrysolite' ||  and  not '  chrysolithus,' 
4  jacinth'  and  not '  jacinthus,'  we  might  fairly  ask  that 
these  should  not  be  exceptionally  treated.  It  should 
therefore  be  '  chrysoprase,'  and  not  i  chrysoprasus.' 

*  A  singular  mistake,  the  use  of  'Miletum'  at  2  Tim.  iv.  20,  has 
been  often  noted.  This  is  one  of  the  errors  into  which  our  Transla 
tors  would  probably  not  have  fallen  themselves,  but  have  inherited  it 
from  the  Versions  preceding,  all  which  have  it.  Yet  it  is  strange  that 
they  did  not  correct  it  here,  seeing  that  it,  or  a  similar  error,  '  Mileton/ 
had  at  Acts  xx.  15,  17,  been  by  them  discovered  and  removed,  and 
the  city's  name  rightly  given,  'Miletus.' 

t  Ptol.,  v.  2,  cf.  Lobeck's  Phrynichus,  p.  422. 

J  Xenophon,  Anab.,  vii.  8,  8 ;  Strabo,  xiii.  4  ;  Pliny,  H.  N.t  xxxv. 
46. 

||  Mis-spelt  '  chrysolite/  and  the  etymology  obscured,  in  all  our 
modern  editions,  but  correctly  given  in  the  exemplar  edition  of  1611. 


ON   SOME   QUESTIONS    OF   TRANSLATION.  63 

2a£<Jio£  is  somewhat  more  difficult  to  deal  with ;  but 
the  word  is  as  much  an  adjective  here  as  rfap&voj  at 
Rev.  iv.  3,  x/dos,  which  is  there  expressed,  being  here 
understood  (we  have  "  Sardius  lapis"  in  Tertullian), 
and  it  would  have  been  better  to  translate  "  a  sardine 
stone"  here  as  has  been  done  there  ;  tfap&ov,  not  tfap&os, 
is  the  Greek  name  of  this  stone,  and  '  sarda'  the  Latin, 
which  last  Holland  has  naturalized  in  English,  and 
written  <  sard.'  The  choice  lay  between  "  sardine 
stone"  and  i  sard ;'  unless,  indeed,  they  had  boldly 
ventured  upon  i  ruby.'  4  Sardius,'  which  they  have 
employed,  as  it  seems  to  me,  is  anyhow  incorrect, 
though  the  Vulgate  may  be  quoted  in  its  favor. 

Hammond  affirms,  and  I  must  needs  consider  with 
reason,  that  "  Tres  Tabernas"  should  have  been  left  in 
its  Latin  form  (Acts  xxviii.  15),  and  not  rendered 
"  The  Three  Taverns."  It  is  a  proper  name,  just  as 
much  as  "Appii  Forum,"  which  occurs  in  the  same 
verse,  and  which  rightly  we  have  not  resolved  into 
"  The  Market  of  Appius."  Had  we  left  "  Tres  Ta- 
bernae"  untouched  (I  observe  De  Wette  does  so),  we 
should  then  have  only  dealt  as  the  sacred  historian 
himself  has  dealt  with  it,  who  has  merely  written  it  in 
Greek  letters,  not  turned  into  equivalent  Greek  words. 
As  little  should  we  have  turned  it  into  English. 

Sometimes  our  Translators  have  carried  too  far,  as 
I  can  not  but  think,  the  turning  of  qualitative  geni 
tives  into  adjectives.  Oftentimes  it  is  prudently  done, 
and  with  a  due  recognition  of  the  Hebrew  idiom  which 


64  ON   SOME   QUESTIONS   OF   TRANSLATION. 

has  moulded  the  Greek  phrase  with  which  they  have 
to  deal.  Thus,  "  forgetful  hearer"  is  unquestionably 
better  than  "  hearer  of  forgetfulness"  (Jam.  i.  25)  ; 
"  his  natural  face"  than  "  face  of  his  nature,"  or  "  of 
his  generation"  fib.);  "  unjust  steward"  than  "  stew 
ard  of  injustice"  (Luke  xvi.  8).  Yet  at  other  times 
they  have  done  this  without  necessity,  and  occasion 
ally  with  manifest  loss.  "  Son  of  his  love,"  which 
the  Rheims  version  has,  would  have  been  better  than 
"beloved  son"*  (Col.  i.  13),  and  certainly  "the 
body  of  our  vileness,"  or  "  of  our  humiliation,"  bet 
ter  than  "  our  vile  body ;"  "  the  body  of  his  glory" 
than  "  his  glorious  body"  (Phil.  iii.  21).  "  The  un 
certainty  of  riches"  would  be  better  than  "  uncer 
tain  riches"  (1  Tim.  vi.  17),  "  children  of  the  curse", 
than  "  cursed  children"  (2  Pet.  ii.  14).  "  The  glo 
rious  liberty  of  the  children  of  God"  (Rom.  viii.  21), 
not  merely  comes  short  of,  but  expresses  something 
very  different  from,  "  the  liberty  of  the  glory  of  the 
children  of  God"  (see  Alford,  in  loco).  Doubtless 
the  accumulated  genitives  are  here  awkward  to  deal 
with ;  it  was  probably  to  avoid  them  that  the  transla 
tion  assumed  its  present  shape  ;  but  still,  when  higher 
interests  are  at  stake,  such  awkwardness  must  be  en 
dured,  and  elsewhere  our  Translators  have  not  shrunk 
from  it,  as  at  Rev.  xvi.  19 :  u  The  cup  of  the  wine  of 
the  fierceness  of  his  wrath." 

*  Augustine  (De  Trin.,  xv.  19)  lays  a  dogmatic  stress  on  the  geni 
tive  ("  Filius  caritatls  ejus  nullus  est  alius,  quam  qui  de  substantid  Ejns 
est  yenitus"),  but  this  may  be  questioned. 


UNNECESSARY   DISTINCTIONS   INTRODUCED.  65 


CHAPTER   IV. 

ON   SOME   UNNECESSARY   DISTINCTIONS  INTRODUCED. 

LET  me  here,  before  entering  on  this  subject,  make 
one  remark,  which,  having  an  especial  reference  to 
the  subject-matter  of  this  and  the  following  chapter, 
more  or  less  bears  upon  all.  It  has  been  already  ob 
served  that  the  advantages  doubtless  were  great,  of 
coming,  as  our  Translators  did,  in  the  rear  of  other 
translators,  of  inheriting  from  those  who  went  before 
them  so  large  a  stock  of  work  well  done,  of  successful 
renderings,  of  phrases  consecrated  already  by  long 
usage  in  the  Church.  It  was  a  signal  gain  that  they 
had  not,  in  the  fabric  which  they  were  constructing, 
to  make  a  new  framework  throughout,  but  needed  only 
here  and  there  to  insert  new  materials  where  the  old 
from  any  cause  were  faulty  or  out  of  date ;  that  of 
them  it  was  not  demanded  that  they  should  make  a 
translation  where  none  existed  before ;  nor  yet  that 
they  should  bring  a  good  translation  out  of  a  bad  or 
an  indifferent  one ;  but  only  a  best,  and  that  not  out 


66  UNNECESSARY   DISTINCTIONS   INTRODUCED. 

of  one,  but  out  of  many  good  ones,  preceding.  None 
who  have  ever  engaged  in  the  work  of  translating  but 
will  freely  acknowledge  that  in  this  their  gain  was 
most  real ;  and  they  well  understood  how  to  turn  these 
advantages  to  account. 

Yet  vast  as  these  doubtless  were,  they  were  not 
without  certain  accompanying  drawbacks.  He  who 
revises,  especially  when  he  comes  to  the  task  of  revis 
ion  with  a  confidence,  here  abundantly  justified,  in  the 
general  excellency  of  that  which  he  is  revising,  is  in 
constant  danger  of  allowing  his  vigilance  to  sleep,  and 
of  thus  passing  over  errors,  which  he  would  not  him 
self  have  originated,  had  he  been  thrown  altogether 
on  his  own  resources.  I  can  not  but  think  that  in 
this  way  the  watchfulness  of  our  Translators,  or  revi 
sers  rather,  has  been  sometimes  remitted ;  and  that 
errors  and  inaccuracies,  which  they  would  not  them 
selves  have  introduced,  they  have  yet  passed  by  and 
allowed.  A  large  proportion  of  the  errors  in  our 
Translation  are  thus  an  inheritance  from  former  ver 
sions.  This  is  not,  indeed,  any  excuse,  for  they  who 
passed  them  by  became  responsible  for  them ;  but  is 
merely  mentioned  as  accounting  for  the  existence  of 
many.  With  this  much  of  introduction,  I  will  pass 
on  to  the  proper  subject  of  this  chapter. 

Our  Translators  sometimes  create  distinctions  such 
as  have  no  counterparts  in  their  original,  by  using 
two  or  more  words  to  render  at  different  places,  or  it 
may  be  at  the  same  place,  a  single  word  in  the  Greek 


UNNECESSARY   DISTINCTIONS   INTRODUCED.  67 

text.  I  would  not  by  any  means  affirm  that  such  va 
rieties  of  rendering  are  not  sometimes,  nay  frequently, 
inevitable.  It  manifestly  would  not  be  possible  to 
represent  constantly  one  word  in  one  language  by  one 
in  another.  If  this  has  ever  been  proposed  as  an  in 
flexible  rule,  it  must  have  been  on  the  assumption  that 
words  in  one  language  cover  exactly  the  same  spaces 
of  meaning  which  other  words  do  in  another,  that  they 
have  exactly  the  same  many-sidedness,  the  same  elas 
ticity,  the  same  power  of  being  applied,  it  may  be, 
now  in  a  good  sense,  now  in  a  bad.  But  nothing  is 
further  from  the  case.  Words  are  enclosures  from 
the  great  outfield  of  meanings  ;  but  different  languages 
have  enclosed  on  different  schemes,  and  words  in 
different  languages  which  are  precisely  co-extensive 
with  one  another,  are  much  rarer  than  we  incuriously 
assume. 

It  is  easy  to  illustrate  this,  the  superior  elasticity 
of  a  word  in  one  language  to  that  of  one  which  is  in 
part  its  equivalent  in  another.  Thus,  we  have  no 
word  in  English  which  at  once  means  heavenly  mes 
sengers  and  earthly,  with  only  the  context  determin 
ing  which  is  intended.  There  was  no  choice,  there 
fore,  but  to  render  c/'y^sXoi  by  '  messengers'  at  Luke 
vii.  24  ;  ix.  52  ;  Jam.  ii.  25  ;  however  it  was  translated 
'  angels'  in  each  other  passage  of  the  New  Testament 
where  it  occurs.  Again,  no  word  in  English  has  the 
power  which  pa-yog  has  in  Greek,  of  being  used  at  will 
in  an  honorable  sense  or  a  dishonorable.  There  was 


68  UNNECESSARY   DISTINCTIONS   INTRODUCED 

no  help,  therefore,  but  to  render  fxa^oi  by  '  wise  men,'* 
or  some  such  honorable  designation,  Matt.  ii.  1 ;  and 
M-a^of  by  i  sorcerer/  Acts  xiii.  6. 

Thus,  again,  it  would  have  been  difficult  to  repre 
sent  nap<xxX?j<ro£,  applied  now  to  the  Holy  Spirit  (John 
xiv.  16,  26),  and  now  to  Christ  (1  John  i.  21),  by  any 
single  word.  *  Paraclete'  would  alone  have  been  pos 
sible  ;  and  such  uniformity  of  rendering,  if  indeed  it 
could  be  called  rendering  at  all,  would  have  been 
dearly  purchased  by  the  loss  of  '  Comforter'  and  '  Ad 
vocate' — both  of  them  Latin  words,  it  is  true,  but 
much  nearer  to  the  heart  and  understanding  of  Eng 
lishmen  than  the  Greek  '  Paraclete'  could  ever  have 
become.f 

So,  too,  it  would  have  been  unadvisable  to  render 
xypis  as  the  compellation  of  one  person  by  another,  al 
ways  '  Sir,'  or  always  '  Lord.'  The  word  has  a  wider 
range  than  either  of  these  two ;  it  is  only  the  two  to 
gether  which  cover  an  equal  extent.  '  Sir,'  in  many 
cases,  would  not  be  respectful  enough  ;  '  Lord'  in  some 

*  Milton,  indeed,  speaks  of  these  wise  men  as  the  "star-led  wiz 
ards,"  and  '  wizard'  is  the  word  which  Sir  John  Cheke  employs  in  his 
translation  of  St.  Matthew;  but  the  word  is  scarcely  honorable  enough 
for  the  n&yoi  of  this  place,  nor  opprobrious  enough  for  the  ^d-yof  of  the 
Acts. 

t  We  should  not  forget,  in  measuring  the  fitness  of  '  Comforter/ 
that  the  fundamental  idea  of  '  Comforter/  according  to  its  etymology 
and  its  early  use,  is  that  of  '  Strengthener/  and  not  '  Consoler/  even 
as  the  Trafxi-cAr/ros  is  one  who,  being  summoned  to  the  side  of  the  ac 
cused  or  imperilled  man  (advocatus),  stands  by  to  aid  and  to  encour 
age.  See  the  admirable  note  in  Hare's  Mission  of  the  Comforter,  pp. 
521-527. 


UNNECESSARY  DISTINCTIONS  INTRODUCED.  69 

would  be  too  respectful  (John  xx.  15).  Our  Trans 
lators  have  prudently  employed  both;  and  in  most 
cases  have  shown  a  fine  tact  in  their  selection  of  one 
or  the  other.  My  only  doubt  is,  whether,  in  the  con 
versation  of  our  Lord  with  the  Samaritan  woman  (John 
iv.),  they  should  not  have  changed  the  *  Sir,'  which  is 
perfectly  in  its  place  at  ver.  11,  where  she  is  barely 
respectful  to  her  unknown  interrogator,  into  '  Lord' 
at  ver.  15,  or,  if  not  there,  yet  certainly  at  ver.  19. 
The  Rheims  version,  beginning,  as  we  do,  with  <  Sir,' 
already  has  exchanged  this  for  4  Lord'  at  ver.  15  ;  and 
thus  delicately  indicates  the  growing  reverence  of  the 
woman  for  the  mysterious  stranger  whom  she  has  met 
beside  Jacob's  well. 

We  do  not,  then,  make  a  general  complaint  against 
our  Translators  that  they  have  varied  their  words 
where  the  original  does  not  vary ;  oftentimes  this  va 
riation  was  inevitable ;  or,  if  not  inevitable,  yet  was 
certainly  the  more  excellent  way ;  but  that  they  have 
done  this  where  it  was  wholly  gratuitous,  and  where 
sometimes  the  force,  vigor,  and  precision  of  the  origi 
nal  have  consequently  suffered  not  a  little.  It  is  true 
that  the  adoption  of  this  course  was  not  on  their  parts 
altogether  of  oversight ;  and  it  will  be  only  fair  to 
hear  what  they,  in  an  "  Address  to  the  Reader,"  now 
seldom  or  never  reprinted,  but,  on  many  accounts, 
well  worthy  of  being  so,*  say  upon  this  matter ;  and 

*  Their  "pedantic  and  uncouth  preface"  Symonds  calls  it.     There 
would  certainly  be  pedantry  in  any  one  now  writing  with  such  rich- 


70  UNNECESSARY   DISTINCTIONS   INTRODUCED. 

how  they  defend  what  they  have  done.  "Another 
thing,"  they  say,  "  we  think  good  to  admonish  thee 
of  (gentle  reader),  that  we  have  not  tied  ourselves  to 
an  uniformity  of  phrasing,  or  to  an  identity  of  words, 
as  some  peradventure  would  wish  that  we  had  done, 
because  they  observe,  that  some  learned  men  some 
where  have  been  as  exact  as  they  could  that  way. 
Truly,  that  we  might  not  vary  from  the  sense  of  that 
which  we  had  translated  before,  if  the  word  signified 
the  same  in  both  places  (for  there  be  some  words  be 
not  of  the  same  sense  everywhere),  we  were  especially 
careful,  and  made  a  conscience  according  to  our  duty. 
But  that  we  should  express  the  same  notion  in  the 
same  particular  word  ;  as,  for  example,  if  we  translate 
the  Hebrew  or  Greek  word  once  by  purpose,  never  to 
call  it  intent;  if  one  where  journeying,  never  travel 
ling  ;  if  one  where  think,  never  suppose ;  if  one  where 
pain,  never  ache ;  if  one  where  joy,  never  gladness, 
&c.,  thus  to  mince  the  matter,  we  thought  to  savor 
more  of  curiosity  than  wisdom,  and  that  rather  it 
would  breed  scorn  in  the  atheist,  than  bring  profit  to 

ness  and  fullness  of  learned  allusion,  a  pedantry  from  which  our  com 
paratively  scanty  stores  of  classical  and  ecclesiastical  learning  would 
effectually  preserve  most  among  us.  But  this  preface  is,  on  many 
grounds,  a  most  interesting  study,  as  giving  at  considerable  length, 
and  in  various  aspects,  the  view  of  our  Translators  themselves  in 
regard  of  the  work  which  they  had  undertaken  ;  and  '  uncouth'  as  this 
objector  calls  it,  every  true  knower  of  our  language  will  acknowledge 
it  a  masterpiece  of  English.  Certainly  it  would  not  be  easy  to  find  a 
more  beautiful  or  affecting  piece  of  writing  than  the  twenty  or  thirty 
lines  with  which  the  fourth  paragraph,  "  On  the  praise  of  the  Holy 
Scriptures,"  concludes. 


UNNECESSARY   DISTINCTIONS   INTRODUCED.  71 

the  godly  reader.  For  is  the  kingdom  of  God  become 
words  or  syllables  ?  why  should  we  be  in  bondage  to 
them,  if  we  may  be  free,  use  one  precisely  when  we 
may  use  another  no  less  fit,  as  commodiously  ?  We 
might  also  be  charged  (by  scoffers)  with  some  unequal 
dealing  toward  a  great  number  of  good  English  words. 
For  as  it  is  written  of  a  certain  great  philosopher, 
that  he  should  say,  that  those  logs  were  happy  that 
were  made  images  to  be  worshipped  ;  for  their  fellows, 
as  good  as  they,  lay  for  blocks  behind  the  fire :  so  if 
we  should  say,  as  it  were,  unto  certain  words,  ;  Stand 
up  higher,  have  a  place  in  the  Bible  always,'  and  to 
others  of  like  quality,  '  Get  ye  hence,  be  banished  for 
ever,'  we  might  be  taxed  peradventure  with  St.  James's 
words,  namely,  '  To  be  partial  in  our  selves  and  judges 
of  evil  thoughts.' " 

This  is  their  explanation  —  to  me,  I  confess,  an  in 
sufficient  one,  whatever  ingenuity  may  be  ascribed  to 
it ;  and  for  these  reasons.  It  is  clearly  the  office  of 
translators  to  put  the  reader  of  the  translation,  as 
nearly  as  may  be,  on  the  same  vantage-ground  as  the 
reader  of  the  original ;  to  give  him,  so  far  as  this  is 
attainable,  the  same  assistances  for  understanding  his 
author's  meaning.  Now,  every  exact  and  laborious 
student  of  his  Greek  Testament  knows  that  there  is 
almost  no  such  help  in  some  passage  of  difficulty,  doc 
trinal  or  other,  as  to  turn  to  his  Greek  Concordance, 
to  search  out  every  other  passage  in  which  the  word 
or  words  wherein  the  difficulty  seems  chiefly  to  reside, 


72  UNNECESSARY   DISTINCTIONS   INTRODUCED. 

occur,  and  closely  to  observe  their  usage  there.  It  is 
manifestly  desirable  that  the  reader  of  the  English 
Bible  should  have,  as  nearly  as  possible,  the  same  re 
source.  But  if,  where  there  is  one  and  the  same  word 
in  the  original,  there  are  two,  three,  half  a  dozen,  in 
the  version,  he  is  in  the  main  deprived  of  it.  Thus, 
he  hears  the  doctrine  of  the  atonement  discussed ;  he 
would  fain  turn  to  all  the  passages  where  i  atonement' 
occurs  ;  he  finds  only  one  (Rom.  v.  11),  and  of  course 
is  unaware  that  in  other  passages  where  he  meets  <  rec 
onciling,'  and  <  reconciliation'  (Rom.  xi.  15 ;  2  Cor. 
v.  18,  19),  it  is  the  same  word  in  the  original.  In 
words  like  this,  which  are,  so  to  speak,  sedes  doctrince , 
one  regrets,  above  all,  variation  and  uncertainty  in 
rendering. 

Thus,  it  will  sometimes  happen,  that  when  St.  Paul 
is  pursuing  a  close  train  of  reasoning,  and  one  which 
demands  severest  attention,  the  difficulties  of  his  ar 
gument,  not  small  in  themselves,  are  aggravated  by 
the  use  of  different  words  where  he  has  used  the 
same  ;  the  word  being  sometimes  the  very  key  of  the 
whole ;  as,  for  instance,  in  the  fourth  chapter  of  the 
Romans.  Aoylfy^ai  occurs  eleven  times  in  this  chap 
ter.  We  may  say  that  it  is  the  key- word  to  St.  Paul's 
argument  throughout,  being  every  where  employed  most 
strictly  in  the  same  sense,  and  that  a  technical  and 
theological.  But  our  Translators  have  no  fixed  rule 
of  rendering  it.  Twice  they  render  it  '  count'  (ver. 
3,  5)  ;  six  times  <  impute'  (ver.  6,  8,  11,  22,  23,  24)  ; 


UNNECESSARY   DISTINCTIONS   INTRODUCED.  73 

and  three  times  <  reckon'  (ver.  4,  9,  10)  ;  while  at 
Gal.  iii.  6,  they  introduce  a  fourth  rendering,  '  ac 
count.'  Let  the  student  read  this  chapter,  employing 
everywhere  ;  reckon,'  or,  which  would  be  better,  ev 
erywhere  '  impute,'  and  observe  how  much  of  clearness 
and  precision  St.  Paul's  argument  would  in  this  way 
acquire. 

In  other  places  no  doctrine  is  in  danger  of  being 
obscured,  but  still  the  change  is  uncalled  for  and  in 
jurious.  Take,  for  instance,  Rev.  iv.  4  :  "  And  round 
about  the  throne  (fyo'vou)  were  four-and-twenty  seats" 
(fyovoi).  It  is  easy  to  see  the  motive  of  this  variation  ; 
and  yet  if  the  inspired  Apostle  was  visited  with  no 
misgivings  lest  the  creature  should  seem  to  be  en 
croaching  on  the  dignity  of  the  Creator,  and  it  is  clear 
that  he  was  not — on  the  contrary,  he  has,  in  the  most 
marked  manner,  brought  the  throne  of  God  and  the 
thrones  of  the  elders  together  —  certainly  the  Trans 
lators  need  not  have  been  more  careful  than  he  had 
been,  nor  made  the  elders  to  sit  on  '  seats,'  and  only 
God  on  a  '  throne.'  This  august  company  of  the  four- 
and-twenty  elders  represents  the  Church  of  the  Old 
and  the  New  Testament,  each  in  its  twelve  heads ; 
but  how  much  is  lost  by  turning  their  i  thrones'  into 
4  seats  ;'  for  example,  the  connection  of  this  Scripture 
with  Matt.  xix.  28 ;  and  with  all  the  .promises  that 
Christ's  servants  should  not  merely  see  his  glory,  but 
share  it,  that  they  should  be  tfJvfyovoi  with  Him  (Rev. 
iii.  21),  this  little  change  obscuring  the  truth  that 

4 


74  UNNECESSARY   DISTINCTIONS   INTRODUCED. 

they  are  here  set  before  us  as  cfu(x/3aa'jX£jovTscr  (1  Cor. 
iv.  8 ;  2  Tim.  ii.  12),  as  kings  reigning  with  Him ! 
This  truth  is  saved,  indeed,  by  the  mention  of  the 
golden  crowns  on  their  heads,  but  is  implied  also  in 
their  sitting,  as  they  do  in  the  Greek  but  not  in  the 
English,  on  seats  of  equal  dignity  with  his,  on '  thrones/ 
The  same  scruple  which  dictated  this  change  makes 
itself  felt  through  the  whole  translation  of  the  Apoca 
lypse,  and  to  a  manifest  loss.  In  that  book  is  set 
forth,  as  nowhere  else  in  Scripture,  the  hellish  parody 
of  the  heavenly  kingdom  ;  the  conflict  between  the  true 
King  of  the  earth  and  the  usurping  king ;  the  loss, 
therefore,  is  evident,  when  for  "  Satan's  throne"  is 
substituted  "  Satan's  seat"  (ii.  13)  ;  for  "  the  throne 
of  the  beast,"  "  the  seat  of  the  beast"  (xvi.  10). 

A  great  master  of  language  will  often  implicitly 
refer  in  some  word  which  he  uses  to  the  same  word, 
or,  it  may  be,  to  another  of  the  same  group  or  family, 
which  he  or  some  one  else  has  just  used  before  ;  and 
where  there  is  evidently  intended  such  an  allusion,  it 
should,  wherever  this  is  possible,  be  reproduced  in 
the  translation.  There  are  two  examples  of  this  in 
St.  Paul's  discourse  at  Athens,  both  of  which  have 
been  effaced  in  our  Version.  Of  those  who  encoun 
tered  Paul  in  the  market  at  Athens,  some  said,  "  He 
seemeth  to  be  a  setter  forth  of  strange  gods"  (Acts 
xvii.  18).  They  use  the  word  xa.Ta^s\e'g ;  and  he, 
remembering  and  taking  up  this  word,  retorts  it  upon 
them  :  "  Whom,  therefore,  ye  ignorantly  worship,  Him 


UNNECESSARY   DISTINCTIONS   INTRODUCED.  75 


set  I  forth  (xara^s'XXw)  unto  you"  (ver.  23).  He  has 
their  charge  present  in  his  mind,  and  this  is  his  an 
swer  to  their  charge.  It  would  more  plainly  appear 
such  to  the  English  reader,  if  the  Translators,  having 
used  "  setter  forth"  before,  had  thus  returned  upon 
the  word,  instead  of  substituting,  as  they  have  done, 
'  declare'  for  it.  The  Rheims  version,  which  has 
4  preacher'  and  '  preach,'  after  the  Vulgate  '  annuntia- 
tor'  and  *  annuntio,'  has  been  careful  to  retain  and 
indicate  the  connection. 

But  the  finer  and  more  delicate  turns  of  the  divine 
rhetoric  of  St.  Paul  are  more  seriously  affected  by 
another  oversight  in  the  same  verse.  We  make  him 
there  say,  "As  I  passed  by,  and  beheld  your  devo 
tions,  I  found  an  altar  with  this  inscription,  To  the 
Unknown  God  (d^vwovw  ©s£).  Whom,  therefore,  ye 
ignorantly  (a/voouv-rsc:)  worship,  Him  declare  I  unto 
you."  But  if  anything  is  clear,  it  is  that  St.  Paul  in 
ayvooGvrss'  intends  to  take  up  the  preceding  dyvutfru  ; 
the  chime  of  the  words,  and  also,  probably,  the  fact 
of  their  etymological  connection,  leading  him  to  this. 
He  has  spoken  of  their  altar  to  an  "  Unknown  God," 
and  he  proceeds,  "  whom,  therefore,  ye  worship  un 
knowing,  Him  declare  I  unto  you."  '  Ignorantly'  has 
the  further  objection  that  it  conveys  more  of  rebuke 
than  St.  Paul,  who  is  sparing  his  hearers  to  the  utter 
most,  intended. 

In  other  passages  also  the  point  of  a  sentence  lies 
in  the  recurrence  and  repetition  of  the  same  word, 


76  UNNECESSARY   DISTINCTIONS   INTRODUCED. 

which  yet  they  have  failed  to  repeat ;  as  in  these  which 
follow  :— 

1  Cor.  iii.  17. — "If  any  man  defile  (<pds»psi)  the 
temple  of  God,  him  shall  God  destroy  (<pdspsr)."  It 
is  the  fearful  law  of  retaliation  which  is  here  pro 
claimed.  He  who  ruins  shall  himself  be  ruined  in 
turn.  It  shall  be  done  to  him,  as  he  has  done  to  the 
temple  of  God.  Undoubtedly  it  is  hard  to  get  the 
right  word,  which  will  suit  in  both  places.  '  Corrupt* 
is  the  first  which  suggests  itself;  yet  it  would  not  do 
to  say  "  If  any  man  corrupt  the  temple  of  God,  him 
shall  God  corrupt"  The  difficulty  which  our  Trans 
lators  felt,  it  is  evident  that  the  Vulgate  felt  the  same, 
which,  in  like  manner,  has  changed  its  word :  "  Si 
quis  autem  templum  Dei  violaverit,  disperdet  ilium 
Deus."  Yet  why  should  not  the  verse  be  rendered, 
"  If  any  man  destroy  the  temple  of  God,  him  shall 
God  destroy"  ? 

Matt.  xxi.  41.  —  A  difficulty  of  exactly  the  same 
kind  exists  here ;  where  yet  the  xaxoucr  xaxw?  of  the 
original  ought,  in  some  way  or  other,  to  have  been 
preserved ;  as  in  this  way  it  might  very  sufficiently 
be  :  "  He  will  miserably  destroy  those  miserable  men." 
— Neither  would  it  have  been  hard  at  2  Thess.  i.  6, 
to  retain  the  play  upon  words,  and  to  have  rendered 
roif  0Xi/3outfiv  ufjwfc  dxr^iv,  "  affliction  to  them  that  afflict 
you,"  instead  of  "  tribulation  to  them  that  trouble 
you,"  there  being  no  connection  in  English  between 
the  words  '  tribulation'  and  c  trouble,'  though  some- 


UNNECESSARY    DISTINCTIONS   INTRODUCED.  77 

thing  of  a  likeness  in  sound :  while  yet  the  very  pur 
pose  of  the  passage  is  to  show  that  what  wicked  men 
have  measured  to  others  shall  be  measured  to  them 
again. 

Let  me  indicate  other  examples  of  the  same  kind, 
where  the  loss  is  manifest.  Thus,  if  at  Gal.  iii.  22, 
oWxXgitfgv  is  translated  '  hath  concluded,'  tfu/xXsio^svoj 
in  the  next  verse,  which  takes  it  up,  should  not  be 
rendered  '  shut  up.'  The  Vulgate  has  well,  '  couclu- 
sit'  and  '  conclusi.'  Let  the  reader  substitute  '  hath 
shut  up'  for  4  hath  concluded'  in  ver.  22,  and  then 
read  the  passage.  He  will  be  at  once  aware  of  the 
gain.  In  like  manner,  let  him  take  Rom.  vii.  7,  and 
read  "  I  had  not  known  lust  (gVidujxi'av)  except  the  law 
had  said,  Thou  shalt  not  lust  (QJX  s^Av^sis)  ;"  or 
Phil.  ii.  13 :  "  It  is  God  which  worketh  (o  svspywv)  in 
you  both  to  will  and  to  work  (TO  svspysrv) ;"  and  the 
passages  will  come  out  with  a  strength  and  clearness 
which  they  have  not  now.  So,  too,  if  at  2  Thess.  ii.  6, 
TO  xa-r^ov  is  rendered  "  what  withholdeth"  6  xars^wv  in 
the  verse  following  should  not  be  "  he  who  letleth." 
While,  undoubtedly,  there  is  significance  in  the  imper 
sonal  TO  xa-rs'^ov  exchanged  for  the  personal  6  xa-rs'^wv, 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  they  refer  to  one  and  the 
same  person  or  institution ;  but  this  is  obscured  by 
the  change  of  the  word.  So,  too,  I  would  have  gladly 
seen  the  connection  between  Xtico/xsvoj  and  Xg»Vg«rai  at 
Jam.  i.  4,  5,  reproduced  in  our  Version.  '  Lacking' 
and  <  lack,'  which  our  previous  versions  had,  would 


78  UNNECESSARY    DISTINCTIONS   INTRODUCED. 

have  done  it.  The  "  patience  and  comfort  of  the 
Scriptures"  (Rom.  xv.  4)  is  derived  from  "  the  God 
of  patience  and  comfort"  (ver.  5)  ;  this  St.  Paul  would 
teach,  who  uses  both  times  -TrapaxX^ic; :  but  there  is  a 
slight  obscuration  of  the  connection  between  the  <  com 
fort'  and  the  Author  of  the  '  comfort'  in  our  Version, 
which,  on  the  second  occasion,  has  for  '  comfort'  need 
lessly  substituted  '  consolation.' 

How  many  readers  have  read  in  the  English  the 
third  chapter  of  St.  John,  and  missed  the  remarkable 
connection  between  our  Lord's  words  at  ver.  11,  and 
the  Baptist's  taking  up  of  those  words  at  ver.  32 ; 
and  this  because  ftaprupia  is  translated  '  witness'  on  the 
former  occasion,  and  <  testimony'  on  the  latter!  — 
Why,  again,  we  may  ask,  should  v{3pis  *«/  £^ia  be 
"  hurt  and  damage"  at  Acts  xxvii.  10  ;  and  "  harm 
and  loss,"  at  their  recurrence,  ver.  21  ?  Both  ren 
derings  are  good,  and  it  would  not  much  import  which 
had  been  selected  ;  but  whichever  had  been  employed 
on  the  first  occasion  ought  also  to  have  been  employed 
on  the  second.  St.  Paul,  repeating  in  the  midst  of 
the  danger  the  very  words  which  he  had  used  when 
counselling  his  fellow-voyagers  how  they  might  avoid 
that  danger,  would  remind  them,  that  so  he  might 
obtain  a  readier  hearing  now,  of  that  neglected  warn 
ing  of  his,  which  the  sequel  had  only  justified  too  well. 

These  are  less  important,  and  might  well  be  passed 
by,  if  anything  could  be  counted  unimportant  which 
helps  or  hinders  ever  so  little  the  more  exact  setting 


UNNECESSARY    DISTINCTIONS    INTRODUCED.  79 

forth  of  the  Word  of  God.  Thus,  in  the  parable  of 
the  Laborers  in  the  Vineyard  (Matt.  xx.  1),  •fa&rftforqc 

is  '  householder,'  ver.  1 ;  it  should  scarcely  be  "  good 
man  of  the  house"  at  ver.  11.*  As  little  should  the 
"governor  of  the  feast"  of  John  ii.  8,  be  "  the  ruler 
of  the  feast"  in  the  very  next  verse  ;  or  the  "  goodly 
apparel,"  of  Jam.  ii.  2,  be  the  "  gay  clothing"  of  the 
verse  following,  the  words  of  the  original  in  each  case 
remaining  unchanged. 

Again,  it  would  have  been  clearly  desirable  that 
where  in  two  or  even  three  Gospels  exactly  the  same 
words,  recording  the  same  event  or  the  same  conver 
sation,  occur  in  the  original,  the  identity  should  have 
been  expressed  by  the  use  of  exactly  the  same  words 
in  the  English.  This  continually  is  not  the  case. 
Thus,  Matt.  xxvi.  41,  and  Mark  xiv.  38,  exactly  cor 
respond  in  the  Greek,  while  in  the  translation  the 
words  appear  in  St.  Matthew :  "  Watch  and  pray,  that 
ye  enter  not  into  temptation  ;  the  spirit  indeed  is  wil 
ling,  but  the  flesh  is  weak  ;"  in  St.  Mark :  "  Watch 
ye  and  pray,  lest  ye  enter  into  temptation  ;  the  spirit 
truly  is  ready,  but  the  flesh  is  weak."  So,  too,  in  a 
quotation  from  the  Old  Testament,  where  two  or  more 
sacred  writers  cite  it  in  identical  words,  this  fact 

*  Scholefield  (Hints,  p.  8)  further  objects  to  this  last  rendering  as 
having  "  a  quaintness  in  it  not  calculated  to  recommend  it."  But  it 
had  nothing  of  the  kind  at  the  time  our  Translation  was  made.  Com 
pare  Spenser,  Fairy  Queen,  iv.  5,  34  : — 

"  There  entering  in,  they  found  the  goodman  self 
Full  busily  upon  his  work  ybent." 


80  UNNECESSARY   DISTINCTIONS   INTRODUCED. 

ought  to  be  reproduced  in  the  version.  It  is  not  so 
in  respect  of  the  important  quotation  from  Gen.  xv.  6  ; 
but  on  the  three  occasions  that  it  is  quoted  (Rom.  iv. 
3  ;  Gal.  iii.  6  ;  Jam.  ii.  23)  it  appears  with  variations, 
slight,  indeed,  and  not  in  the  least  affecting  the  sense, 
but  yet  which  would  better  have  been  avoided.  Again, 
the  phrase  orf/j^  sju5ia^  occurring  twice  in  the  New 
Testament,  has  so  fixed,  and,  I  may  say,  so  technical 
a  significance,  referring  as  it  does  to  a  continually- 
recurring  phrase  of  the  Old  Testament,  that  it  should 
not  be  rendered  on  one  occasion,  "  a  sweet-smelling 
savor"  (Eph.  v.  2),  on  the  other,  "  an  odor  of  a  sweet' 
smell"  (Phil.  iv.  18). 

Sometimes  interesting  and  important  relations  be 
tween  different  parts  of  Scripture  would  come  out 
more  strongly,  if  what  is  precisely  similar  in  the  ori 
ginal  had  reappeared  as  precisely  similar  in  the  trans 
lation.  The  Epistles  to  the  Ephesians  and  to  the  Co- 
lossians  profess  to  have  been  sent  from  Rome  to  the 
East  by  the  same  messenger  (cf.  Eph.  vi.  21,22; 
Col.  iv,  7,  8)  ;  they  were  written,  therefore,  we  may 
confidently  conclude,  about  the  same  time.  When 
we  come  to  examine  their  internal  structure,  this  ex 
actly  bears  out  what  under  such  circumstances  we 
should  expect  in  letters  proceeding  from  the  pen  of 
St.  Paul — great  differences,  but  at  the  same  time  re 
markable  points  of  contact  and  resemblance,  both  in 
the  thoughts  and  in  the  words  which  are  the  garment 
of  the  thoughts.  Paley  has  urged  this  as  an  internal 


UNNECESSARY   DISTINCTIONS   INTRODUCED.  81 

evidence  for  the  truth  of  those  statements  which  these 
Epistles  make  about  themselves.  This  internal  evi 
dence  doubtless  exists  even  now  for  the  English  read 
er  ;  but  it  would  press  itself  on  his  attention  much 
more  strongly,  if  the  exact  resemblances  in  the  origi 
nals  had  been  represented  by  exact  resemblances  in 
the  copies.  This  oftentimes  has  not  been  the  case. 
Striking  coincidences  in  language  between  one  Epistle 
and  the  other,  which  exist  in  the  Greek,  do  not  exist 
in  the  English.  For  example,  svs'p/sia  is  c  working,' 
Eph.  i.  19  ;  it  is  <  operation,'  Col.  ii.  12  ;  ra.ifem<ppotfvvn 
is  *  lowliness,'  Eph.  iv.  2  ;  "  humbleness  of  mind,"  Col. 
iii.  12  ;  tf^a/Si/Sa^o'/jisvov  is  <  compacted,'  Eph.  iv.  16  ; 
4  knit  together,'  Col.  ii.  19,  with  much  more  of  the 
same  kind  ;  as  is  accurately  brought  out  by  the  late 
Professor  Blunt,*  who  draws  one  of  the  chief  motives 
why  the  Clergy  should  study  the  Scriptures  in  the 
original  languages,  from  the  shortcomings  which  exist 
in  the  translations  of  them. 

•  It  may  be  interesting,  before  leaving  this  branch 
of  the  subject,  to  take  a  few  words,  and  to  note  the 
variety  of  rendering  to  which  they  are  submitted  in 
our  Version.  I  have  not  taken  them  altogether  at 
random,  yet  some  of  these  are  by  no  means  the  most 
remarkable  instances  in  their  kind.  They  will,  how 
ever,  sufficiently  illustrate  the  matter  in  hand. 

,  l  to  reject'  (Mark  vi.  26)  ;  <  to  despise'  (Luke 


*  Duties  of  the  Parish  Priest,  p.  71.     The  whole  section  (pp.  47- 
76)  is  eminently  instructive. 

4* 


82  UNNECESSARY    DISTINCTIONS   INTRODUCED. 

x.  16)  ;  ' to  bring  to  nothing'  (1  Cor.  i.  19)  ;  '  to  frus 
trate'  (Gal.  ii.  21)  ;  '  to  disannul'  (Gal.  iii.  15)  ;  '  to 
cast  off'  (1  Tim.  v.  12). 

'AvaflVcwo'w,  'to  turn  upside  down'  (Actsxvii.  6); 
'  to  make  an  uproar'  (Acts  xxi.  38)  ;  '  to  trouble' 
(Gal.  v.  12). 

'AiroxaXu^c,  4  revelation'  (Rom.  ii.  5)  ;  '  manifesta 
tion'  (Rom.  viii.  19)  ;  '  coming'  (1  Cor.  i.  7) ;  4  ap 
pearing'  (1  Pet.  i.  7). 

AS\SU%U,  '  to  entice'  (Jam.  i.  14)  ;  *  to  beguile'  (2 
Pet.  ii.  14)  ;  '  to  allure'  (2  Pet.  ii.  18). 

Zo>£,  '  darkness'  (2  Pet.  ii.  4)  ;  '  mist'  (2  Pet.  ii. 
17);  'blackness'  (Jude  13). 

KarapT-Ew,  '  to  cumber'  (Luke  xiii.  7) ;  '  to  make  with 
out  effect'  (Rom.  iii.  3) ;  '  to  make  void'  (Rom.  iii.  31)  ; 
*  to  make  of  none  effect'  (Rom.  iv.  14)  ;  '  to  destroy' 
(Rom.  vi.  6)  ;  'to  loose'  (Rom.  vii.  2)  ;  'to  deliver' 
(Rom.  vii.  6)  ;  '  to  bring  to  nought'  (1  Cor.  i.  8)  ;  '  to 
do  away'  (1  Cor.  xiii.  10)  ;  '  to  put  away'  (1  Cor.  xiii. 
11)  ;  '  to  put  down'  (1  Cor.  xv.  24)  ;  '  to  abolish'  (2, 
Cor.  iii.  13).  Add  to  these,  xarapylojiai,  '  to  come  to 
nought'  (1  Cor.  ii.  6)  ;  'to  fail'  (1  Cor.  xiii.  8)  ;  'to 
vanish  away'  (ibid.) ;  '  to  become  of  none  effect'  (Gal. 
v.  4)  ;  '  to  cease'  (Gal.  v.  11)  ;  and  we  have  here  sev 
enteen  different  renderings  of  this  word,  occurring  in 
all  twenty-seven  times  in  the  New  Testament. 

Ka<ra£<r.'£w,  '  to  mend'  (Matt.  iv.  21)  ;  '  to  perfect' 
(Matt.  xxi.  16)  ;  '  to  fit'  (Rom.  ix.  22)  ;  '  to  perfectly 
join  together'  (1  Cor.  i.  10)  ;  '  to  restore'  (Gal.  vi. 


UNNECESSARY   DISTINCTIONS   INTRODUCED.  83 

1)  ;  '  to  prepare'  (Heb.  x.  5)  ;  '  to  frame'  (Heb.  xi.  3)  ; 
'  to  make  perfect'  (Heb.  xiii.  21). 

Kau^aofxa<, i  to  make  boast'  (Rom.  ii.  17)  ;  '  to  re 
joice'  (Rom.  v.  2)  ;  <  to  glory'  (Rom.  v.  3)  ;  '  to  joy' 
(Rom.  v.  11)  ;  <  to  boast'  (2  Cor.  vii.  14). 

Kparg'w,  4  to  take'  (Matt.  ix.  25)  ;  <  to  lay  hold  on' 
(Matt.  xii.  11)  ;  <  to  lay  hands  on'  (Matt,  xviii.  28)  ; 
4  to  hold  fast'  (Matt.  xxvi.  48)  ;  '  to  hold'  (Matt, 
xxviii.  9)  ;  '  to  keep'  (Mark  ix.  10)  ;  '  to  retain'  (John 
xx.  23)  ;  <  to  obtain'  (Acts  xxvii.  13). 

napaxa-Xsw,  <  to  comfort'  (Matt.  ii.  18)  ;  '  to  beseech' 
(Matt.  viii.  5)  ;  <  to  desire'  (Matt,  xviii.  32)  ;  '  to  pray' 
(Matt.  xxvi.  53)  ;  '  to  entreat'  (Luke  xv.  28)  ;  <  to  ex 
hort'  (Acts  ii.  40)  ;  <  to  call  for'  (Acts  xxviii.  20). 

Let  me  once  more  observe,  in  leaving  this  part  of 
the  subject,  that  I  would  not  for  an  instant  imply  that 
in  all  these  places  one  and  the  same  English  word 
could  have  been  employed,  but  only  that  the  variety 
might  have  been  much  smaller  than  it  is. 


84  ON   SOME   REAL   DISTINCTIONS   EFFACED. 


CHAPTER   Y. 

ON  SOME  REAL  DISTINCTIONS  EFFACED. 

IF  it  is  impossible,  as  was  sho'wn  at  the  beginning 
of  the  last  chapter,  in  every  case  to  render  one  word 
in  the  original  by  one  word  and  no  more  in  the  trans 
lation,  equally  impossible  is  it  to  render  in  every  case 
different  words  in  the  original  by  different  words  in 
the  translation.  It  will  continually  happen  that  one 
language  possesses,  and  fixes  in  words,  distinctions 
of  which  another  takes  no  note.  The  more  subtile- 
thoughted  a  people  are,  the  finer  and  more  numerous 
the  differences  will  be  which  they  will  thus  have  seized, 
and  to  which  they  will  have  given  permanence  in 
words.  What  can  an  English  translator  do  to  ex 
press  the  distinction,  oftentimes  very  significant,  be 
tween  dvYjg  and  av^wffog? — the  honor  which  lies  often 
in  the  first  (Acts  xiii.  16  ;  xvii.  22),  the  slight  which 
is  intended  to  be  conveyed  in  the  second  (Matt.  xxvi. 
72)  ?  At  this  point  the  Latin  language,  with  4  vir' 
and  4  homo,'  is  a  match  for  the  Greek,  but  not  so  our 


ON   SOME   REAL   DISTINCTIONS   EFFACED.  85 

own.  In  like  manner,  the  differences,  oftentimes  in 
structive,  occasionally  important,  between  Ispo'v  and 

vaoV,  ftios  and  £wr;,  ciXXos  and  srspocr,  vs'oc;  and  xaivccr,  dXr,/)^ 

and  ctXTj^voV,  9«Xsw  and  dyavau,  mostly  disappear,  and 
there  seems  no  help  but  that  they  must  disappear,  in 
any  English  translation  of  the  Greek  Testament.  Such 
facts  remind  us  that  language,  divine  gift  to  man  as 
it  is,  yet  working  itself  out  through  human  faculties 
and  powers,  has  cleaving  to  it  a  thousand  marks  of 
weakness,  and  infirmity,  and  limitation. 

To  take  an  example  of  this,  the  obliteration  of  dis 
tinctions,  which  is  quite  unavoidable,  or  which  could 
only  have  been  avoided  at  the  cost  of  greater  losses 
in  some  other  direction,  and  to  deal  with  it  somewhat 
more  in  detail — the  distinction  between  "AiSyg,  the 
under-world,  the  receptacle  of  the  departed,  and 
ys'ewa,  the  place  of  torment,  quite  disappears  in  our 
Version.  They  are  both  translated  '  hell,'  qb^s  being 
so  rendered  ten  times,  and  ys'swa  twelve ;  the  only  at 
tempt  to  give  a.or)s  a  word  of  its  own,  being  at  1  Cor. 
xv.  55,  where  it  is  translated  '  grave/  The  confusion 
of  which  this  is  the  occasion  is  serious ;  though  how 
it  could  have  been  avoided,  or  how  it  would  be  pos 
sible  now  to  get  rid  of  it,  I  do  not  in  the  least  per 
ceive.  It  would  not  be  possible  to  render  adrlS,  wher 
ever  it  occurs,  by  '  grave,'  thus  leaving  '  hell'  as  the 
rendering  of  ys'swa  only ;  for  see  Matt.  xi.  23 ;  xvi. 
18,  the  first  two  places  of  its  occurrence,  where  this 
plainly  would  not  suit.  On  the  other  hand,  the  popu- 


86  ON   SOME   REAL   DISTINCTIONS   EFFACED. 

lar  sense  links  the  name  of  '  hell'  so  closely  with  the 
place  of  torment,  that  it  would  not  answer  to  keep 
4  hell'  for  gi<fri£,  and  to  look  out  for  some  other  render 
ing  of  ye'swa,  to  say  nothing  of  the  difficulty  or  impos 
sibility  of  finding  one  ;  for  certainly  '  gehenna,'  whicli 
I  have  seen  proposed,  would  not  do.  The  French 
have,  indeed,  adopted  the  word,  though  it  is  only 
4  gene'  to  them  ;  and  Milton  has  once  used  it  in  poetry ; 
but  it  can  not  in  any  sense  be  said  to  be  an  English 
word.  It  is  much  to  be  regretted  that  '  hades'  has 
never  been  thoroughly  naturalized  among  us.  The 
language  wants  the  word,  and  in  it  the  true  solution 
of  the  difficulty  might  have  been  found. 

Yet  freely  granting  all  which  this  example  illus 
trates,  it  is  evident  that  the  forces  and  capacities  of  a 
language  should  be  stretched  to  the  uttermost,  the 
riches  of  its  synonyms  thoroughly  searched  out ;  and 
not  till  this  is  done,  not  till  its  resources  prove  plainly 
inadequate  to  the  task,  ought  translators  to  acquiesce 
in  the  disappearance  from  their  copy,  of  distinctions 
which  existed  in  the  original  from  which  that  copy 
was  made,  or  to  count  that,  notwithstanding  this  dis 
appearance,  they  have  done  all  that  lay  in  them  to 
do.  More  assuredly  might  have  been  here  accom 
plished  than  has  by  our  Translators  been  attempted, 
as  I  will  endeavor  by  a  few  examples  to  prove. 

Thus,  one  must  always  regret,  and  the  regret  has 
been  often  expressed,  that  in  the  Apocalypse  our 
Translators  should  have  rendered  d^/cv  and  £wov  by 


ON   SOME   KEAL   DISTINCTIONS   EFFACED.  87 

the  same  word,  '  beast.*  Both  play  important  parts 
in  the  book ;  both  belong  to  its  higher  symbolism ; 
but  to  portions  the  most  different.  The  £wa  or  "  liv 
ing  creatures,"  which  stand  before  the  throne,  in  which 
dwells  the  fullness  of  all  creaturely  life,  as  it  gives 
praise  and  glory  to  God  (iv.  6,  7,  8,  9 ;  v.  6 ;  vi.  t ; 
and  often)  form  part  of  the  heavenly  symbolism  ;  the 
di£»'a,  the  first  beast  and  the  second,  which  rise  up,  one 
from  the  bottomless  pit  (xi.  7),  the  other  from  the 
sea  (xiii.  1),  of  which  the  one  makes  war  upon  the 
two  Witnesses,  the  other  opens  his  mouth  in  blasphe 
mies,  these  form  part  of  the  hellish  symbolism.  To 
confound  these  and  those  under  a  common  designa 
tion,  to  call  those  ;  beasts'  and  these  '  beasts,'  would 
be  an  oversight,  even  granting  the  name  to  be  suita 
ble  to  both  ;  it  is  a  more  serious  one,  when  the  word 
used,  bringing  out,  as  this  must,  the  predominance  of 
the  lower  animal  life,  is  applied  to  glorious  creatures 
in  the  very  court  and  presence  of  Heaven.  The  error 
is  common  to  all  the  translations.  That  the  Rheims 
should  not  have  escaped  it  is  strange  ;  for  the  Vulgate 
renders  £wa  by  *  animalia'  ('  animantia'  would  have 
been  still  better),  and  only  ^PJ'OV  by  '  bestia.'  If  ££a 
had  always  been  rendered  "  living  creatures,' '  this 
would  have  had  the  additional  advantage  of  setting 
these  symbols  of  the  Apocalypse,  even  for  the  English 
reader,  in  an  unmistakable  connection  with  Ezek.  i. 
5,  13,  14,  and  often  ;  where  "  living  creature"  is  the 
rendering  in  our  English  Version  of  J~pn>  as  ?^cv  is  ifl 
the  ^ 


88  ON   SOME   REAL   DISTINCTIONS   EFFACED. 

In  like  manner,  in  the  parable  of  the  Marriage  of 
the  King's  Son  (Matt.  xxii.  1-14),  the  <$ouXo»  who  sum 
mon  the  bidden  guests  (ver.  3, 4),  and  the  £iaxovoi  who 
in  the  end  expel  the  unworthy  intruder  (ver.  13), 
should  not  have  been  confounded  under  the  common 
name  of  i  servants.'  A  real  and  important  distinction 
between  the  several  actors  in  the  parable  is  in  this 
way  obliterated.  The  £oiJXoi  are  men,  the  ambassadors 
of  Christ,  those  that  invite  their  fellow-men  to  the 
blessings  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven ;  but  the  &axovoi 
are  angels,  those  that  "  stand  by"  (Luke  xix.  24), 
ready  to  fulfil  the  Divine  judgments,  and  whom  we 
ever  find  the  executors  of  these  judgments  in  the  day 
of  Christ's  appearing.  They  are  as  distinct  from  one 
another  as  the  "  servants  of  the  householder,"  who  in 
like  manner  are  men,  and  the  i  reapers,'  who  are  an 
gels,  in  the  parable  of  the  Tares  (Matt.  xiii.  27,  30). 
In  the  Vulgate  the  distinction  which  we  have  lost  is 
preserved ;  the  (JouXo«  are  4  servi,'  the  toaxovoi  '  ministri ;' 
and  all  our  early  translations  in  like  manner  rendered 
the  words  severally  by  4  servants'  and  '  ministers ;' 
the  Rheims  by  c  servants'  and  *  waiters.' 

There  is  a  very  real  distinction  between  AWT'IO,  and 
aifsitsia.  It  is  often  urged  by  our  elder  divines  ;  I  re 
member  more  than  one  passage  in  Jackson's  works 
where  it  is  so ;  but  it  is  not  constantly  observed  by 
our  Translators.  'Ain<r<rla  is,  I  believe,  always  and 
rightly  rendered,  '  unbelief,'  while  cwreMsia  is  in  most 
cases  rendered,  and  rightly,  '  disobedience  ;'  but  on 


ON    SOME    REAL   DISTINCTIONS    EFFACED.  89 

two  occasions  (Heb.  iv.  6,  11)  it  also  is  translated 
1  unbelief.'  In  like  manner,  d*Htre~v  is  properly  "  to 
refuse  belief"  dxeidsn  "to  refuse  obedience;"  but 
ditsiQeTv  is  often  in  our  Translation  allowed  to  run  into 
the  sense  of  dirtfrsTv,  as  at  John.  iii.  36 ;  Acts  xiv.  2 ; 
xix.  9 ;  Rom.  xi.  30  (the  right  translation  in  the 
margin)  ;  and  yet,  as  I  have  said,  the  distinction  is 
real ;  dirt^sia  or  disobedience  is  the  consequence  of 
dflritfria  or  unbelief;  they  are  not  identical  with  one 
another. 

Again,  there  was  no  possible  reason  why  rfotpo'g-  and 
<ppo'vi^o<r  should  not  have  been  kept  asunder,  and  the 
real  distinction  which  exists  between  them  in  the 
original  maintained  also  in  our  Version.  We  possess 
4  wise'  for  rfopocr,  and  '  prudent'  for  <ppo'vifxo£ .  It  is  true 
that  tfjvsTo'c;  has  taken  possession  of  c  prudent,'  but 
might  have  better  been  rendered  by  '  understanding.' 
Our  Translators  have  thrown  away  their  advantage, 
rendering,  I  believe  in  every  case,  both  tfospo's  and 
vppovifxos  by  <  wise,'  although  in  no  single  instance  are 
the  words  interchangeable.  The  <ppovi,ao$  is  one  who 
dexterously  adapts  his  means  to  his  ends  (Luke  xvi. 
8),  the  word  expressing  nothing  in  respect  of  the 
ends  themselves,  whether  they  are  worthy  or  not; 
the  tfo?oV  is  one  whose  means  and  ends  are  alike  wor 
thy.  God  is  tfo<p6ff  (Jude  25)  ;  wicked  men  may  be 
(pmiacj,  while  tfoqioi,  except  in  the  tfo<pfa  TOU  xoV/xou,  they 
could  never  be.  How  much  would  have  been  gained 
at  Luke  xvi.  8,  if  (pewi^us  had  been  rendered,  not 


90  ON    SOME   REAL    DISTINCTIONS   EFFACED. 

'  wisely,'  but  '  prudently  ;'  how  much  needless  offence 
would  have  been  avoided ! 

The  standing  word  which  St.  Paul  uses  to  express 
the  forgiveness  of  sins  is  a<ps<ri£  afxa^nuv ;  but  on  one 
remarkable  occasion  he  changes  his  word,  and  instead 
of  apstfjg-  employs  xu.ge<fi£  (Rom.  iii.  25).  Our  Transla 
tors  take  no  note  of  the  very  noticeable  substitution, 
but  render  va.gs<tw  a^r^-nwv,  or  rather  here  ajxa£Ty]/ji<a<rwv, 
"remission  of  sins,"  as  everywhere  else  they  have 
rendered  the  more  usual  phrase.  But  it  was  not  for 
nothing  that  St.  Paul  used  here  quite  another  word. 
He  is  speaking  of  quite  a  different  thing ;  he  is  speaking, 
not  of  the  * 'remission'  of  sins,  or  the  letting  of  them 
quite  go,  but  of  the  '  pretermission'  (Va^rf^  from 
wa^nifii),  the  passing  of  them  by  on  the  part  of  God 
for  a  while,  the  temporary  dissimulation  upon  his  part, 
which  found  place  under  the  Old  Covenant,  in  consid 
eration  of  the  sacrifice  which  was  one  day  to  be. 
The  passage  is  further  obscured  by  the  fact  that  our 
Translators  have  rendered  8d  <rr,v  *a.gs<fn  as  though  it 
had  been  Sd  T"^  leagfaeus — "for  the  remission,"  that 
is,  with  a  view  to  the  remission,  while  the  proper  ren 
dering  of  SIOL,  with  an  accusative,  would,  of  course, 
have  been  "  because  of  the  remission,"  or  rather  "  the 
pretermission,"  or,  as  Hammond  proposes,  "  because 
of  the  passing-  by,  of  past  sins."  What  the  Apostle 
would  say  is  this  :  "  There  needed  a  signal  manifesta 
tion  of  the  righteousness  of  God  on  account  of  the 
long  pretermission,  or  passing  by,  of  sins  in  his  infi- 


ON   SOME   REAL   DISTINCTIONS   EFFACED.  91 

nite  forbearance,  with  no  adequate  expression  of  his 
righteous  wrath  against  them,  during  all  those  ages 
which  preceded  the  revelation  of  Christ :  which  mani 
festation  of  his  righteousness  at  length  found  place, 
when  He  set  forth  no  other  and  no  less  than  his  own 
Son  to  be  the  propitiatory  sacrifice  for  sin."  But  the 
passage,  as  we  have  it  now,  can  not  be  said  to  yield 
this  meaning. 

There  are  two  occasions  on  which  a  multitude  is 
miraculously  fed  by  our  Lord ;  and  it  is  not  a  little 
remarkable  that  on  the  first  occasion  in  every  narra 
tive,  and  there  are  four  records  of  the  miracle,  the 
word  xo'<p<vo£  is  used  of  the  baskets  in  which  the  frag 
ments  which  remain  are  gathered  up  (Matt.  xiv.  20 ; 
Mark  vi.  43  ;  Luke  ix.  17  ;  John  vi.  13)  ;  while  on 
occasion  of  the  second  miracle,  in  the  two  records 
which  are  all  that  we  have  of  it,  ovupi's  is  used  (Matt, 
xv.  37  ;  Mark  viii.  8)  ;  and  in  proof  that  this  is  not 
accidental  see  Matt.  xvi.  9,  10 ;  Mark  viii.  19,  20. 
The  fact  is  a  slight,  yet  not  unimportant,  testimony 
to  the  entire  distinctness  of  the  two  miracles,  and  that 
we  have  not  here,  as  some  of  the  modern  assailants 
of  the  historical  accuracy  of  the  Gospels  assure  us, 
two  confused  traditions  of  one  and  the  same  event. 
What  the  exact  distinction  between  xo<pivos  and  ovupfe 
is,  may  be  hard  to  determine,  and  it  may  not  be  very 
easy  to  suggest  what  second  word  should  have  marked 
this  distinction ;  yet  I  can  not  but  think  that  where, 
not  merely  the  Evangelists  in  their  narrative,  but  the 


92  ON    SOME   REAL   DISTINCTIONS   EFFACED. 

Lord  in  his  allusion  to  the  event,  so  distinctly  marks 
a  difference,  we  should  have  attempted  to  mark  it 
also,  as  the  Vulgate  by  '  cophini'  and  <  spartae'  has 
done. 

Again,  our  Translators  obliterate,  for  the  most  part, 
the  distinction  between  ifaTs  ©sou  and  uio^  ©sou,  as  ap 
plied  to  Christ.  There  are  five  passages  in  the  New 
Testament  in  which  the  title  *<£$  ©sou  is  given  to  the 
Son  of  God.  In  the  first  of  these  (Matt.  xii.  18)  they 
have  rendered  #«£  by  '  servant ;'  and  they  would  have 
done  well  if  they  had  abode  by  this  in  the  other  four. 
These  all  occur  in  the  Acts,  and  in.  every  one  of  them 
the  notion  of '  servant'  is  abandoned,  and  '  son'  (Acts 
iii.  13,  26),  or  '  child'  (Acts  iv.  27,  30),  introduced. 
I  am  persuaded  that  in  this  they  were  in  error. 
UaTs  ©sou  might  be  rendered  "  servant  of  God,"  and  I 
am  persuaded  that  it  ought.  It  might  be,  for  it  needs 
not  to  say  iraTg  is  continually  used  like  the  Latin  '  puer' 
in  the  sense  of  servant,  and  in  the  LXX.  vaTs  ©sou  as 
the  u  servant  of  God."  David  calls  himself  so  no 
less  than  seven  time^m  2  Sam.  vii. ;  cf.  Luke  i.  69 ; 
Acts  iv.  25;  Job  i.  8;  Ps.  xix.  12,  14.  But  not 
merely  it  might  have  been  thus  rendered ;  it  also 
should  have  been,  as  these  reasons  convince  me: 
Every  student  of  prophecy  must  have  noticed  how 
much  there  is  in  Isaiah  prophesying  of  Christ  under 
the  aspect  of  "  the  servant  of  the  Lord  ;"  "  Israel  my 
servant?'  "  my  servant  whom  I  uphold"  (Isai.  xlii. 
1-7  ;  xlix.  1-12  ;  Iii.  13  ;  liii.  12).  1  say,  prophesy- 


ON   SOME   REAL   DISTINCTIONS   EFFACED.  93 

ing  of  Christ ;  for  I  dismiss,  as  a  baseless  dream  of 
those  who  a  priori  are  determined  that  there  are,  and 
therefore  shall  be,  no  prophecies  in  Scripture,  the  no 
tion  that  "  the  servant  of  Jehovah"  in  Isaiah  is  Israel 
according  to  the  flesh,  or  Isaiah  himself,  or  the  body 
of  the  prophets  collectively  considered,  or  any  other 
except  Christ  Himself.  But  it  is  quite  certain,  from 
the  inner  harmonies  of  the  Old  Testament  and  the 
New,  that  wherever  there  is  a  large  group  of  prophe 
cies  in  the  Old,  there  is  some  allusion  to  them  in  the 
New.  Unless,  however,  we  render  *a7s  ©sou  by  "  ser 
vant  of  God"  in  the  place  where  that  phrase  occurs 
in  the  New,  there  will  be  no  allusion  throughout  it  all 
to  that  group  of  prophecies  which  designate  the  Mes 
siah  as  the  servant  of  Jehovah,  who  learned  obedience 
by  the  things  which  He  suffered.  I  can  not  doubt, 
and,  as  far  as  I  know,  this  is  the  conclusion  of  all  who 
have  considered  the  subject,  that  ir&Ts  ©sou  should  be 
rendered  "  servant  of  God,"  as  often  as  in  the  New 
Testament  it  is  used  of  Christ.  His  sonship  will  re 
main  sufficiently  declared  in  innumerable  other  pas 
sages. 

Something  of  precision  and  beauty  is  lost  at  John 
x.  16,  by  rendering  cu'X>j  and  4roi>vij  both  by  i  fold :' 
"And  other  sheep  I  have,  which  are  not  of  this  fold 
(av>%)  ;  these  also  I  must  bring,  and  they  shall  hear 
my  voice ;  and  there  shall  be  one  fold  (Vo/fAVT]),  and 
one  shepherd."  It  is  remarkable  that  in  the  Vulgate 
there  is  the  same  obliteration  of  the  distinction  be- 


94  ON    SOME   REAL    DISTINCTIONS    EFFACED. 

tween  the  two  words,  '  ovile'  standing  for  both.  Sub 
stitute  4  flock'  for  '  fold'  on  the  second  occasion  of  its 
occurring  (this  was  Tyndale's  rendering,  which  we 
should  not  have  forsaken),  and  it  will  be  at  once  felt 
how  much  the  verse  will  gain.  The  Jew  and  the 
Gentile  are  the  two  '  folds,'  which  Christ,  the  Good 
Shepherd,  will  gather  into  a  single  '  flock.' 

As  a  further  example,  take  John  xvii.  12  :  "  While 
I  was  with  them  in  the  world,  I  kept  them  in  thy 
name.  Those  that  Thou  gavest  me  I  have  kept,  and 
none  of  them  is  lost."  It  is  not  a  great  matter,  yet 
who  would  not  gather  from  this  i  kept'  recurring  twice 
in  this  verse,  that  there  must  be  also  in  the  original 
some  word  of  the  like  recurrence  ?  Yet  it  is  not  so  ; 
the  first  '  kept'  is  ST^OUV,  and  the  second  spjXafa :  nor 
are  r^Iv  and  (puXatftfeiv  here  such  mere  synonyms,  that 
the  distinction  between  them  may  be  effaced  without 
loss.  The  first  is  '  servare,'  or  better,  c  conservare,' 
the  second  '  custodire  ;'  and  the  first,  the  keeping  or 
preserving,  is  the  consequence  of  the  second,  the 
guarding.  What  the  Lord  would  say  is  :  "I  so  guard 
ed,  so  protected  (Jpfaafa),  those  whom  Thou  hast 
given  me,  that  I  kept  and  preserved  them  (this  the 
TTjp^tfjf)  unto  the  present  day."  Thus  Lampe  :  "r^v 
est  generalius,  vitaeque  nova3  finalem  conservationem 
potest  exprimere  ;  puXarfrfeiv  vero  specialius  mediorum 
prsestationem,  per  quae  finis  ille  obtinetur."  He 
quotes  excellently  to  the  point,  Prov.  xix.  6 :  6$ 


ON   SOME   REAL   DISTINCTIONS   EFFACED.  95 

Before  leaving  this  branch  of  the  subject,  I  will 
give  one  or  two  examples  more  of  the  way  in  which 
a  single  word  in  the  English  does  duty  for  many  in 
the  Greek.  Thus,  take  the  words  '  thought'  and 
'  think.'  The  Biblical  psychology  is  anyhow  a  sub 
ject  encumbered  with  most  serious  perplexities.  He 
finds  it  so,  and  often  sees  his  way  but  obscurely,  who 
has  all  the  helps  which  the  most  accurate  observation 
nnd  comparison  of  the  terms  actually  used  by  the  sa 
cred  writers  will  afford.  Of  course,  none  but  the 
student  of  the  original  document  can  have  these  helps 
in  their  fullness ;  at  the  same  time  it  scarcely  needed 
that 4  thought'  should  be  employed  as  the  rendering 
alike  of  £vdjur)<r»cr  (Matt.  ix.  4),  tfiaXo/io'/xos  (Matt.  xv. 
19),  (Wrifxa  (Luke  xi.  17),  e^'voia  (Acts  viii.  22), 
XoyitffAo's  (Rom.  ii.  15),  and  vo^a  (2  Cor.  x.  5)  ;  or  that 
the  verb  "  to  think"  should  in  the  passages  which  fol 
low  be  the  one  English  representative  of  a  still  wider 
circle  of  words,  of  Soxsu  (Matt.  iii.  9),  vofx»£u  (Matt, 
v.  17),  evdujjigojAai  (Matt.  ix.  4),  &aXoyi'£ofxa»  (Luke  xii. 
17),  &evdufA£Val  (Acts  x.  19),  uirovoe'w  (Acts  xiii.  25), 

jjyg'ofAai    (Acts    XXVi.    2),   XPJ'VOJ    (Acts    XXVI.    8),   <p£ov^J 

(Rom.  xii.  3),  Xoy/^ofxai  (2  Cor.  iii.  5),  vos'w  (Ephes. 
iii.  20),  o7ojAai  (Jam.  i.  7). 

One  example  more.  The  verb  "  to  trouble"  is  a 
very  favorite  one  with  our  Translators.  There  are 
no  less  than  ten  Greek  words  or  phrases  which  it  is 
employed  by  them  to  render ;  these,  namely :  xoVou$ 

raps'^w  (Matt.  XX vi.  10),cfx:X\6j  (Markv. 


96  ON   SOME   REAL   DISTINCTIONS   EFFACED. 


(Luke  i.  29),  <rup/3a£w  (Luke  x.  41),  wapevo^Xg'w  (Acts 
xv.  19),  <5o£u/3sVa'  (Acts  xx.  10),  Tapatftfw  (Gal.  i.  7), 

ctvaflVarow  (Gal.  V.  12),  6\i}3u    (2  Thess.  i.  6),  evo^oj 

(Heb.  xii.  15).  If  we  add  to  these  sxraparfo'&j,  "ex 
ceedingly  to  trouble"  (Acts  xvi.  20),  fyos'ofxai,  "  to  be 
troubled"  (Matt.  xxiv.  6),  the  word  will  do  duty  for 
no  fewer  than  twelve  Greek  words.  Now,  the  Eng 
lish  language  may  not  be  so  rich  in  synonyms  as  the 
Greek  ;  but  with  '  vex,'  '  harass,'  ;  disturb,'  '  distress,' 
4  afflict,'  '  disquiet,'  '  unsettle,'  *  burden,'  '  terrify  ;'  al 
most  every  one  of  which  would  in  one  of  the  above 
places  or  other  seem  to  me  more  appropriate  than  the 
word  actually  employed,  I  can  not  admit  that  the  pov 
erty  or  limited  resources  of  our  language  left  no  choice 
here,  but  to  efface  all  the  distinctions  between  these 
words,  as  by  the  employment  of  '  trouble'  for  them  all 
has,  in  these  cases  at  least,  been  done. 


ON   SOME   BETTER   RENDERINGS   FORSAKEN.          97 


CHAPTER   VI. 

ON    SOME    BETTER    RENDERINGS    FORSAKEN,    OR    PLACED 
IN   THE   MARGIN. 

OCCASIONALLY,  but  rarely,  our  Translators  dismiss 
a  better  rendering,  which  was  in  one  or  more  of  the 
earlier  versions,  and  replace  it  with  a  worse.  It  may 
be  said  of  their  Version,  in  regard  of  those  which  went 
before,  that  it  occupies  very  much  the  place  which 
the  Vulgate  did  in  regard  of  the  Latin  versions  pre 
ceding.  In  the  whole,  an  immense  improvement, 
while  yet  in  some  minor  details  they  are  more  ac 
curate  than  it.  This  is  so  in  the  passages  which 
follow. 

Matt,  xxviii.  14. — "And  if  this  come  to  the  gov 
ernor^ 's  ears,  we  will  persuade  him,  and  secure  you." 
The  Geneva  version,  but  that  alone  among  the  previ 
ous  ones,  had  given  the  passage  rightly  :  "  And  if  this 
come  before  the  governor  (xa;'  sav  axoutfdij  TOUTO  fa}  rou 
^f,ao'voff),  we  will  pacify  him,  and  save  you  harmless." 
The  words  of  the  original  have  reference  to  a  judicial 
5 


08  ON   SOME   BETTER   RENDERINGS    FORSAKEN, 

hearing  of  the  matter  before  the  governor  ("  si  res 
apud  ilium  judicem  agatur,"  Erasmus),  and  not  to  the 
possibility  of  its  reaching  his  ears  by  hearsay,  but  this 
our  Translation  fails  to  express.  In  -n-s'tfofisv,  I  may 
observe,  lies  a  euphemism  by  no  means  rare  in  Hel 
lenistic  Greek  (see  Krebs,  Obss.  e  Josepho,  in  loco)  : 
"  We  will  take  effectual  means  to  persuade  him ;"  as, 
knowing  the  covetous,  greedy  character  of  the  man, 
they  were  able  confidently  to  promise. 

Mark  xi.  17.  — "  Is  it  not  written,  My  house  shall 
be  called,  of  all  nations,  the  house  of  prayer  ?  but  ye 
have  made  it  a  den  of  thieves."  In  Tyndale's  ver 
sion,  in  Cranmer's,  and  the  Geneva :  "  My  house  shall 
be  called  the  house  of  prayer  unto  all  nations;  but 
ye,"  &c.,  and  rightly.  There  is  no  difficulty  what 
ever  in  giving  -rratfj  <roTg  sAvsffi,  a  dative  rather  than  an 
ablative  sense  ;  while  thus  the  passage  is  brought  into 
exact  agreement  with  that  in  Isaiah,  to  which  Christ, 
in  his  "  it  is  written,"  refers,  namely,  Isai.  Ivi.  7 ; 
and,  moreover,  the  point  of  his  words  is  preserved, 
which  the  present  translation  misses.  Our  Lord's  in 
dignation  was  aroused  in  part  at  the  profanation  of 
the  holy  precincts  of  his  Father's  house ;  but  in  part, 
also,  by  the  fact  that,  the  scene  of  this  profanation 
being  the  Court  of  the  Gentiles,  the  Jews  have  thus 
managed  to  testify  their  contempt  for  them,  and  for 
their  share  in  the  blessings  of  the  Covenant.  Those 
parts  of  the  temple  which  were  exclusively  their  own, 
the  Court  of  the  Priests,  and  the  Court  of  Israelites, 


OR   PLACED   IN   THE   MARGIN.  99 

they  had  kept  clear  of  these  buyers  and  sellers  ;  but 
that  part  assigned  to  the  Gentile  worshippers,  the 
tff/Soxe'voi  TOV  ©FC'V,  they  were  little  concerned  about  the 
profanation  to  which  it  was  exposed,  perhaps  pleased 
with  it  rather.  In  a  righteous  indignation  Christ 
quotes  the  words  of  the  prophet,  which  they  had  done 
all  that  in  them  lay  to  defeat :  "  My  house  shall  be 
called  the  house  of  prayer  unto  all  nations :"  all  which 
intention  on  his  part  in  the  citation  of  the  prophecy 
our  Version  fails  to  preserve.  Mede*  .ascribes  to  the 
influence  of  Beza  this  alteration,  which  is  certainly 
one  for  the  worse. 

Ephes.  iv.  18.  —  "  Because  of  the  blindness  of  their 
hearts."  The  Geneva  version  had  given  this -rightly, 
"  because  of  the  hardness  of  their  heart ;"  which  bet 
ter  rendering  our  Translators  forsake,  being  content 
to  place  it  in  the  margin.  But  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  flrupwtfis  is  from  the  substantive  -Trwpo?,  a  porous 
kind  of  stone,  and  from  crwpow,  to  become  callous,  hard, 
or  stony  (Mark  vi.  52  ;  John  xii.  40  ;  Rom.  xi.  7  ;  2 
Cor.  iii.  14)  ;  not  from  tugis,  blind.  How  much  bet 
ter,  too,  this  agrees  with  what  follows  — "  who  being 
past  feeling"  (that  is,  having,  through  their  hardness 
or  callousness  of  heart,  arrived  at  a  condition  of  mis 
erable  lUflutffcjtfi'a),  "have  given  themselves  over  to 
work  all  uncleanness  with  greediness."  I  may  ob 
serve  that  at  Rom.  xi.  7,  they  have  in  like  manner 
put '  blinded'  in  the  text,  and  <  hardened,'  the  correct 

Works,  p.  45. 


100        ON   SOME   BETTER   RENDERINGS   FORSAKEN, 


rendering  of  faupMytfav,  in  the  margin  ;  while  at  2  Cor. 
iii.  16,  where  they  translate  dXXJ  Iflrwpwflrj  *a  vo^ara. 
auTwv,  "  but  their  minds  were  blinded"  the  correcter  is 
not  even  offered  as  an  alternative  rendering.  Wiclif 
and  the  Rheims,  which  both  depend  on  the  Vulgate 
("  sed  obtusi  sunt  sensus  eorum"),  are  here  the  only 
correct  versions. 

1  Thess.  v.  22.  —  "Abstain  from  all  appearance  of 
evil."  An  injurious  translation  of  the  words,  d^o 
flravrofT  iiSwg  -rovi-ipou  airs-xetf&e,  and  a  going  back  from  the 
right  translation,  "Abstain  from  all  kind  of  evil," 
which  the  Geneva  version  had.  It  is  from  the  reality 
of  evil,  and  sTSos  here  means  this  (see  a  good  note  in 
Hammond),  not  from  the  appearance,  which  God's 
Word  elsewhere  commands  us  to  abstain  ;  nor  does  it 
here  command  anything  else.  Indeed,  there  are  times 
when,  so  far  from  abstaining  from  all  appearance  of 
evil,  it  will  be  a  part  of  Christian  courage  not  to  ab 
stain  from  such.  It  was  an  "  appearance  of  evil"  in 
the  eyes  of  the  Pharisees,  when  our  Lord  healed  on 
the  Sabbath,  or  showed  himself  a  friend  of  publicans 
and  sinners  ;  but  Christ  did  not  therefore  abstain  from 
this  or  from  that.  How  many  "  appearances  of  evil," 
which  he  might  have  abstained  from,  yet  did  not,  must 
St.  Paul's  own  conversation  have  presented  in  the 
eyes  of  the  zealots  for  the  ceremonial  law  !  I  was 
once  inclined  to  think  that  our  Translators  used  i  ap 
pearance'  here  as  we  might  now  use  '  form,'  and  that 
we  therefore  had  here  an  obsolete,  not  an  inaccurate, 


OR    PLACED   IN   THE   MARGIN.  101 

rendering ;  but  I  can  find  no  authority  for  this  use  of 
the  word. 

Heb.  xi.  13.  — "  These  all  died  in  faith  ;  not  having 
received  the  promises ;  but  having  seen  them  afar  off, 
and  were  persuaded  of  them,  and  embraced  them." 
But  with  all  respect  be  it  said,  this  "  embracing'  the 
promises"  was  the  very  thing  which  the  worthies  of 
the  Old  Testament  did  not  do ;  and  which  the  sacred 
writer  is  urging  throughout  that  they  did  not  do,  who 
only  saw  them  from  afar,  as  things  distant  and  not 
near.  Our  present  rendering  is  an  unfortunate  going 
back  from  Tyndale's  and  Cranmer's  "  saluted  them," 
from  Wiclif  's  "  greeted  them."  The  beautiful  image 
of  mariners  homeward-bound,  who  recognise  from  afar 
the  promontories  and  well-known  features  of  a  beloved 
land,  and  '  greet'  or  '  salute'  these  from  a  distance,  is 
lost  to  us.  Estius  :  "  Chrysostoinus  dictum  putat  ex 
metaphora  navigantium  qui  ex  longinquo  prospiciunt 
civitates  desideratas,  quas  antequam  ingrediantur  et 
inhabitant,  salutatione  praeveniunt."  Cf.  Virgil,  Mn., 
iii.  524  :— 

"  Italiam  laeto  socii  clamore  salutant." 

In  other  respects  our  Version  is  unsatisfactory.  The 
words,  "  and  were  persuaded  of  them,"  have  no  right 
to  a  place  in  the  text ;  while  the  "  afar  off"  (ffo'^wdev) 
belongs  not  to  the  seeing  alone,  but  to  the  saluting  as 
well.  How  beautifully  the  verse  would  read  thus 
amended !  "  These  all  died  in  faith ;  not  having  re 
ceived  the  promises,  but  having  seen  and  saluted  them 


102        ON    SOME   BETTER   RENDERINGS    FORSAKEN, 

from  afar."  We  have  exactly  such  a  salutation  from 
afar  in  the  words  of  the  dying  Jacob  :  "  I  have  waited 
for  thy  salvation,  0  Lord"  (Gen.  xlix.  18). 

1  Pet.  i.  17.  — "  And  if  ye  call  on  the  Father,  who 
without  respect  of  persons  judgeth  according  to  every 
man's  work,  pass  the  time  of  your  sojourning  here  in 
fear."  Here,  too,  it  must  be  confessed,  that  we  have 
left  a  better,  and  chosen  a  worse,  rendering.  The 
Geneva  had  it,  aAnd  if  ye  call  Him  Father,  who 
without  respect  of  persons,"  <fec. ;  and  this,  and  this 
only,  is  the  meaning  which  the  words  of  the  original, 
xcu  si  Ilars'pa  srtixaXsttf&s  rov  cUrpotf«*'oXij*T«£  xp/vovra,  x.r.X., 

will  bear. 

It  must  not  be  supposed  from  what  has  been  here 
adduced  that  our  Translators  did  not  exercise  a  very 
careful  revision  of  the  translations  preceding.  In  ev 
ery  page  of  their  work  there  is  evidence  that  they  did 
so.  Very  often  our  Authorized  Version  is  the  first 
that  has  seized  the  true  meaning  of  a  passage.  It 
would  be  easy  for  me  to  bring  forward  many  passages 
in  proof,  only  that  my  task  is  here,  passing  over  the 
hundred  excellencies,  to  fasten  rather  on  the  single 
fault ;  and  I  must  therefore  content  myself  with  one 
or  two  illustrations  of  this.  Thus,  at  Heb.  iv.  1,  none 
of  the  preceding  versions,  neither  our  own,  nor  the 
Rheims,  had  correctly  given  xa<raXsiflrofA£v»jg  sirayyeXlas : 
they  all  translate  it  "  forsaking  the  promise,"  or  some 
thing  similar,  instead  of,  as  we  have  rightly  done,  "  a 
•promise  being  left  us."  Again,  at  Acts  xii.  19,  the 


OR   PLACED   IN   THE   MARGIN.  103 

technical  meaning  of  a-ra^vai,  that  it  signifies  to  be 
led  away  to  execution,  is  wholly  missed  by  Tyndale 
("  he  examined  the  keepers  and  commanded  to  de 
part" ),  by  Crannaer,  and  the  Rheims ;  it  is  only  par 
tially  seized  by  the  Geneva  version,  but  perfectly  by 
our  Translators.  Far  more  important  than  this  is  the 
clear  recognition  of  the  personality  of  the  Word  in 
the  prologue  of  St.  John  by  our  Translators :  "  All 
things  were  made  by  Him;"  u  In  Him  was  life"  (John 
i.  3, 4)  ;  while  in  all  our  preceding  versions  it  is  read, 
"  All  things  were  made  by  it"  and  so  on.  Our  Ver 
sion  is  the  first  which  gives  tfuvaXi^ofxevos  (Acts  i.  4) 
rightly. 

Improvements  are  also  very  frequent  in  single  words 
and  phrases,  even  where  those  which  were  displaced 
were  not  absolutely  incorrect.  Thus,  how  much  bet 
ter  "  earnest  expectation"  (Rom.  viii.  19)  than  "  fer 
vent  desire,"  as  a  rendering  of  a-s-oxGpa&>x;a  ;  '  tattlers' 
instead  of  '  triflers,'  as  a  rendering  of  pXuapoj  (1  Tim. 
v.  13  ;  indeed,  the  latter  could  hardly  be  said  to  be 
correct.*  "  Whited  sepulchres"  is  an  improvement 
upon  "painted  sepulchres"  (-r^o-  Xc>.ov»  tvo,-,  Matt, 
xxiii.  27),  which  all  our  preceding  versions  had. 
"  Without  distraction"  (1  Cor.  vii.  35)  is  a  far  better 
rendering  of  Its^i  -  ..<;?•*.$  than  "without  separation." 
It  was  slovenly  to  introduce  '  Candy,'  the  modern 

*  Unless,  indeed,  '  trifler'  once  meant  "  utterer  of  trifles,"  and  thus 
'tattler;'  which  may  perha,)?  be,  as  I  observe  in  the  fragment  of  a 
Nominate  published  by  Wright,  National  Antiquities,  vol.  i.,  p.  216, 
'  nugigerulus'  given  as  the  Latin  equivalent  of  '  trifler.' 


104        ON    SOME   BETTER   RENDERINGS    FORSAKEN, 

name  of  Crete,  which  all  the  Anglican  versions  before 
our  own  had  done  at  Acts  xxvii.  7, 12,  21 ;  but  which 
in  ours  is  removed.  "  Profane  person"  is  a  singularly 
successful  rendering  of  (3s £n'  o-  (Heb.  xii.  16),  while 
yet  none  of  our  preceding  versions  had  lighted  upon 
it ;  at  the  same  time  it  is  possible  that  we  ourselves 
o\ve  it  to  the  Rheims,  where  it  first  appears. 

But,  further,  our  Translators  sometimes  put  a  bet 
ter  rendering  in  the  margin,  and  retain  a  worse  in  the 
text.  It  may  perhaps  be  urged  that  here  at  least  they 
offer  the  better  to  the  reader's  choice.  But  practi 
cally  this  can  not  be  said  to  be  the  case.  FOP,  in  the 
first  place,  the  proportion  of  our  Bibles  is  very  small 
which  are  printed  with  these  marginal  variations,  as 
compared  with  those  in  which  they  are  suppressed. 
They  are  thus  brought  under  the  notice  of  very  few 
among  the  readers  of  Scripture,  not  to  say  that  by 
these  they  are  very  rarely  referred  to.  How  many, 
for  instance,  among  these  even  know  of  the  existence 
of  a  variation  so  important  as  that  at  John  iii.  3  ? 
And  even  if  they  do  refer,  they  commonly  attach  com 
paratively  little  authority,  to  them.  They  acquiesce 
for  the  most  part,  and  naturally  acquiesce,  in  the  ver 
dict  of  the  Translators  about  them  ;  who,  by  placing 
them  in  the  margin,  and  not  in  the  text,  evidently 
declare  that  they  consider  them  the  less  probable  ren 
derings.  Then,  too,  of  course,  they  are  never  heard 
in  the  public  services  of  the  Church,  which  must  al- 


OR   PLACED    IN   THE   MARGIN.  105 

ways  be  a  chief  source  of  the  popular  knowledge  of 
Scripture.  It  is  impossible,  then,  to  attach  to  a  right 
interpretation  in  the  margin  any  serious  value,  as  re 
dressing  an  erroneous  or  imperfect  one  in  the  text. 
Marginal  variations  are  quite  without  influence  as 
modifying  the  view  which  the  body  of  English  readers 
take  of  any  passages  in  the  English  Bible ;  and  this 
leads  me  to  observe  that  the  suggestion  which  has 
been  sometimes  made  of  a  large  addition  to  these,  as 
a  middle  way  and  compromise  between  leaving  our 
Version  as  it  is,  and  introducing  actual  changes  into 
its  text,  does  not  seem  to  me  to  contain  any  real  so 
lution  of  our  difficulties,  not  to  say  that  it  would  be 
attended  with  many  and  most  serious  objections. 

But  to  return.  The  following  are  passages  in  which 
I  can  not  doubt  that  we  have  placed  the  better  ren 
dering  in  the  margin,  the  worse  in  the  text : — 

Matt.  v.  21. —  "  Ye  have  heard  that  it  was  said  by 
them  of  old  time."  This  rendering  of  s^rfa  ™~s  a£xa'°'£ 
is  grammatically  defensible,  while  yet  there  can  be  no 
reasonable  doubt  that  "  to  them  of  old  time,"  which  was 
in  all  the  preceding  versions,  but  which  our  Transla 
tors  have  dismissed  to  the  margin,  ought  to  resume  its 
place  in  the  text. 

Matt.  ix.  36.  —  "They  fainted  and  were  scattered 
abroad,  as  sheep  having  no  shepherd."  But  "  scat 
tered  abroad"  does  not  exactly  express  ^Jiju^voi,  any 
more  than  does  the  '  zerstreut'  of  Luther's  version. 
It  is  not  their  dispersion  one  from  another,  but  their 


106        ON    SOME   BETTER  RENDERINGS    FORSAKEN, 

prostration  in  themselves,  which  is  intended.  The 
^|ifXjUL-svo»  are  the  '  prostrati,'  '  temere  projecti ;'  those 
that  have  cast  themselves  along  for  very  weariness, 
unable  to  travel  any  farther.  The  Vulgate  had  it 
rightly,  'jacentes,'  which  Wiclif  follows,  "lying 
down."  Our  present  rendering  dates  as  far  back  as 
Tyndale,  and  was  retained  in  the  subsequent  versions  ; 
while  the  correct  translation  is  relegated  to  the  mar 
gin. 

Matt.  x.  16.  —  "Be  ye  therefore  wise  as  serpents, 
and  harmless  as  doves."  Wiclif,  following  the  Vul 
gate,  had  "simple  as  doves."  4  Simple'  our  Transla 
tors  have  dismissed  to  the  margin  ;  they  ought  to  have 
kept  it  in  the  text,  as  rightly  they  have  done  at  Rom. 
xvi.  19.  The  rendering  of  dxs'^aios  by  6  harmless'  here 
and  at  Phil.  ii.  15,  grows  out  of  wrong  etymology,  as 
though  it  were  from  d  and  XSPO.$,  one  who  had  no  horn 
with  which  to  push  or  otherwise  hurt.  Thus,  Bengel, 
who  falls  in  with  this  error,  glosses  here :  "  Sine 
cornu,  ungula,  dente,  aculeo."  But  this  "  without 
horn"  would  be  dx^aros;  while  the  true  derivation  of 
dxfyaios,  it  needs  hardly  be  said,  is  from  d  and  xs^avvufw, 
unmingled,  sincere,  and  thus  single,  guileless,  simple, 
without  all  folds.  How  much  finer  the  antithesis  in 
this  way  becomes  !  "  Be  ye  therefore  wise  ('  prudent' 
would  be  better)  as  serpents,  and  simple  as  doves"  — 
having  care,  that  is,  that  this  prudence  of  yours  do 
not  degenerate  into  artifice  and  guile ;  letting  the 
columbine  simplicity  go  hand  in  hand  with  the  ser- 


OR   PLACED    IN    THE   MARGIN.  107 

pentine  prudence.  The  exact  parallel  will  then  be 
1  Cor.  xiv.  20. 

Mark  vi.  20.  — "  For  Herod  feared  John,  knowing 
that  he  was  a  just  man  and  an  holy,  and  observed  him." 
This  may  be  after  Erasmus,  who  renders  xcu  tfuvsrrjpai 
auro'v,  "  et  magni  eum  faciebat ;"  so,  too,  Grotius  and 
others.  Now,  it  is  undoubtedly  true  that  tfuvrqpgiv  TO, 
6.fxoia  (Polybius,  iv.  60,  10)  would  be  rightly  trans 
lated  "  to  observe  things  righteous ;"  but  here  it  is 
not  things,  but  a  person,  and  no  such  rendering  is 
admissible.  Translate  rather,  as  in  our  margin,  "  kept 
him  or  saved  him,"  that  is,  from  the  malice  of  Hero- 
dias ;  she  laid  plots  for  the  Baptist's  life,  but  up  to 
this  time  Herod  tfuvcrrpn,  sheltered  or  preserved,  him 
("  custodiebat  eum,"  the  Vulgate  rightly),  so  that  her 
malice  could  not  reach  him.  See  Hammond,  in  loco. 
It  will  at  once  be  evident  in  how  much  stricter  logical 
sequence  the  statement  of  the  Evangelist  will  follow, 
if  this  rendering  of  the  passage  is  admitted. 

Mark  vii.  4.  — '  Tables.'  This  can  not  be  correct : 
our  Translators  have  put  '  beds'  in  the  margin,  against 
which  rendering  of  *>uvojv  nothing  can  be  urged,  ex 
cept  that  the  context  points  clearly  here  to  these  in  a 
special  aspect,  namely,  to  the  '  benches'  or  '  couches' 
on  which  the  Jews  reclined  at  their  meals. 

Luke  xvii.  21.  —  "  The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  ivithin 
you."  Doubtless,  the  words  sv-oj  CJAOJV  may  mean  this  ; 
but  how  could  the  Lord  address  this  language  to  the 
Pharisees  ?  A  very  different  kingdom  from  the  king- 


108 

dom  of  heaven  was  within  them,  not  to  say  that  this 
whole  language  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven  being  within 
men,  rather  than  men  being  within  the  kingdom  of 
heaven,  is,  as  one  has  justly  observed,  modern.  Tho 
marginal  reading,  "  among  you,"  should  have  been 
the  textual.  "  He  in  whom  the  whole  kingdom  of 
heaven  is  shut  up  as  in  a  germ,  and  from  whom  it  will 
unfold  itself,  stands  in  your  midst.'''' 

Col.  ii.  18.  —  "  Let  no  man  beguile  you  of  your  re 
ward"  It  is  evident  that  this  xara/3pa/3su$V«  ujxag1 
seriously  perplexed  our  early  translators,  and  indeed 
others  besides  them.  Thus,  in  the  earlier  Italic  we 
find,  "  vos  superet ;"  in  the  Vulgate,  "  vos  decipiat ;" 
Tyndale  translates,  "  make  you  shoot  at  a  wrong 
mark  ;"  the  Geneva,  "  bear  rule  over  you  ;"  while  our 
Translators  have  proposed  as  an  alternative  reading  to 
that  which  they  admit  into  the  text,  "judge  against 
you."  The  objection  to  this  rendering,  which  marks 
more  insight  into  the  true  character  of  the  word  than 
any  which  went  before,  is  that  it  is  too  obscure,  and 
does  not  sufficiently  tell  its  own  story.  The  meaning 
of  jSpa/SeJsiv  is,  to  adjudge  a  reward  ;  of  xara/Spa^s&iv, 
out  of  a  hostile  mind  (this  is  implied  in  the  xam),  to 
adjudge  it  away  from  a  person,  with  a  subaudition 
that  this  is  the  person  to  whom  it  is  justly  due.  Je 
rome  (ad  Alg-as.  Qu.  10)  does  not  quite  seize  the 
meaning ;  for  he  regards  the  xara/3pa$suwv  as  the  com 
petitor  who  unjustly  bears  away,  not  tlje  judge  who 
unjustly  ascribes,  the  reward :  otherwise  his  ezplana: 


OR   PLACED   IN   THE   MARGIN.  109 

tion  is  good  :  "  Nemo  adversum  vos  braviura  accipiat : 
hoc  enim  Gragce  dicitur  xCT«£p«£cu6ru,  quum  quis  in 
certamine  positus,  iniquitate  agonothetae,  vel  insidiis 
magistrorum,  fipapsw  et  palmam  sibi  debitam  perdit." 
It  is  impossible  for  any  English  word  to  express  the 
fullness  of  allusion  contained  in  the  original  Greek ; 
while  long  circumlocutions,  which  should  turn  the 
version  in  fact  into  a  commentary,  are  clearly  inad 
missible.  If  "judge  against  you"  is  too  obscure,  and 
too  little  of  an  English  idiom,  and  "judge  away  the 
reward  from  you"  would  underlie  the  second  at  least 
of  these  objections,  the  substitution  of  '  deprive'  for 
i  beguile'  (which  last  has  certainly  no  claim  to  stand), 
might,  in  case  of  a  revision,  be  desirable. 

1  Thess.  iv.  6.  —  "  Let  no  man  go  beyond  or  defraud 
his  brother  in  any  matter."  But  TU  here  is  not  =r$ 
=  T/VJ,  which  would  alone  justify  the  rendering  of  h 
ru  flrpayjjicwi,  "  in  any  matter."  A  more  correct  trans 
lation  is  in  the  margin,  namely,  "  in  the  matter,"  that 
is,  "  in  this  matter,"  being  the  matter  with  which  the 
Apostle  at  the  moment  has  to  do.  The  difference 
may  not  seem  very  important,  but,  indeed,  the  whole 
sense  of  the  passage  turns  on  this  word ;  and,  as  we 
translate  in  one  way  or  the  other,  we  determine  for 
ourselves  whether  it  is  a  warning  against  overreach 
ing  our  neighbor,  and  a  too  shrewd  dealing  with  him 
in  the  business  transactions  of  life,  strangely  finding 
place  in  the  midst  of  warnings  against  uncleanness 
and  a  libertine  freedom  in  the  relation  of  the  sexes ; 


110        ON    SOME   BETTEK   RENDERINGS   FORSAKEN, 

or  whether  an  unbroken  warning  against  this  is  con 
tained  through  all  these  verses  (3-9).  I  can  not 
doubt  that  the  latter  is  the  correct  view,  that  TO 
flrpayjxa  is  an  euphemism,  and  that  our  marginal  ver 
sion  is  the  right  one  ;  the  Apostle  warning  his  Thes- 
salonian  converts  that  none,  in  a  worse  -rrXsovsfi'a  than 
that  which  makes  one  man  covet  his  neighbor's  goods, 
overstep  the  limits  and  fences  by  which  God  has 
hedged  round  and  separated  from  him  his  brother's 
wife.  See  Bengel,  in  loco.  Accepting  this  view  of 
the  passage,  '  overreach,'  which  the  margin  suggests 
instead  of  *  defraud,'  as  the  rendering  of  *Xsovgx«rv, 
would  also  be  an  undoubted  improvement. 

1  Tim.  vi.  5.  —  "  Supposing  that  gain  is  godliness." 
It  is  difficult  to  connect  any  meaning  whatever  with 
this  language.  But  Coverdale,  and  he  alone  of  our 
translators,  deals  with  these  words,  vofugoms  -jropj^ov 
SM/CU  <rriV  sutfs'/itaav,  rightly — "which  think  that  godli 
ness  is  lucre"  that  is,  a  means  of  gain.  The  want  of 
a  thorough  mastery  of  the  Greek  article  and  its  use, 
left  it  possible  here  to  go  back  from  a  right  rendering 
once  attained. 

Heb.  v.  2.  —  "Who  can  have  compassion  on  the 
ignorant,  and  on  them  that  are  out  of  the  way,  for 
that  he  himself  also  is  compassed  with  infirmity." 
But  is,  it  may  fairly  be  asked,  "  who  can  have  com 
passion,"  the  happiest  rendering  of  fwrpiwrofoiv  Juva/xsvos  ? 
and  ought  furpfMrafaft  to  be  thus  taken  as  entirely  sy 
nonymous  with  tfu/xiraforv  ?  The  words  fwrpioflradeiv, 


OR   PLACED   IN   THE   MARGIN.  Ill 

,  belong  to  the  terminology  of  the  later  schools 
of  Greek  philosophy,  and  were  formed  to  express  that 
moderate  amount  of  emotion  (the  iierplus  -ra^iv)  which 
the  Peripatetics  and  others  acknowledged  as  becom 
ing  a  wise  and  good  man,  contrasted  with  the  d^a^sja, 
or  absolute  indolency,  which  the  Stoics  required.  It 
seems  to  me  that  the  Apostle  would  say  that  the  high 
priest  taken  from  among  men,  out  of  a  sense  of  his 
own  weakness  and  infirmity  was  in  a  condition  to 
estimate  mildly  and  moderately,  and  not  transported 
with  indignation,  the  sins  and  errors  of  his  brethren ; 
and  it  is  this  view  of  the  passage  which  is  correctly 
expressed  in  the  margin :  "  who  can  reasonably  bear 
ivith  the  ignorant,"  &c. 

Heb.  ix.  23.  —  "  It  was  therefore  necessary  that  the 
patterns  of  things  in  the  heavens  should  be  purified 
with  these,  but  the  heavenly  things  themselves  with 
better  sacrifices  than  these."  The  employment  of 
*  patterns'  introduces  some  confusion  here,  and  is  not 
justified  by  the  use  of  the  word  in  the  time  of  our 
Translators,  any  more  than  in  our  own.  It  is,  of 
course,  quite  true  that  MSer/pa.  may  mean,  and,  in 
deed,  often  does  mean,  *  pattern'  or  '  exemplar'  (John 
xiii.  15).  But  here,  as  at  viii.  5  (M&ttyp*  xa<  <rxj'a), 
it  can  only  mean  the  copy  drawn  from  this  exemplar. 
The  heavenly  things  are  themselves  "  the  patterns"  or 
archetypes,  the  '  Urbilden  ;'  the  earthly,  the  Levitical 
tabernacle,  with  its  priests  and  sacrifices,  are  the 
copies,  the  similitudes,  the  '  Abbilden,'  which,  as  such, 


112        ON    SOME   BETTER   RENDERINGS    FORSAKEN. 

are  partakers  not  of  a  real  but  a  typical  purification. 
This  is,  indeed,  the  very  point  which  the  Apostle  is 
urging,  and  his  whole  antithesis  is  confused  by  calling 
the  earthly  things  themselves  "  the  patterns."  The 
earlier  translators,  Tyndale,  Cranmer,  and  the  Gene 
va,  had  '  similitudes,'  which  was  correct,  though  it 
seems  to  me  that  *  copies'  would  be  preferable.* 

2  Pet.  iii.  12.  —  "Hasting  unto  the  coming  of  the 
day  of  God."  The  Vulgate  had  in  like  manner  ren 
dered  the  <ftrso5oyT££  T^V  wapoutfiav,  "  properantes  in  ad- 
ventum ;"  and  this  use  of  <f*sudsw  may  be  abundantly 
justified,  although  "  hasting  toward  the  coming"  seems 
to  me  to  express  more  accurately  what  our  Transla 
tors  probably  intended,  and  what  the  word  allows. 
This  will  then  be  pretty  nearly  De  Wette's  '  ersehn- 
end.'  Yet  the  marginal  version,  "  hasting  the  com 
ing"  (accelerantes  adventum,"  Erasmus),  seems  bet 
ter.  The  faithful,  that  is,  shall  seek  to  cause  the  day 
of  the  Lord  to  come  the  more  quickly  by  helping  to 
fulfil  those  conditions,  without  which  it  can  not  come 
—  that  day  being  no  day  inexorably  fixed,  but  one, 
the  arrival  of  which  it  is  free  to  the  Church  to  help 
and  hasten  on  by  faith  and  by  prayer,  and  through  a 
more  rapid  accomplishing  of  the  number  of  the  elect. 

*  It  is  familiarly  known  to  all  students  of  English  that  '  pattern'  is 
originally  only  another  spelling  of  '  patron'  (the  client  imitates  his 
patron;  the  copy  takes  after  its  pattern),  however  they  may  have  now 
separated  off  into  two  words.  But  it  is  interesting  to  notice  the  word 
when  as  yet  this  separation  of  one  into  two  had  not  uttered  itself  in 
different  orthography.  We  do  this  Heb.  viii.  5  (Geneva  Version) : 
"  which  priesteu  serve  unto  the  patrone  and  shadow  of  heavenly  things." 


ERRORS  OF  GREEK  GRAMMAR  IN  OUR  VERSION.  113 


CHAPTER   VII. 

ON  SOME  ERRORS  OF  GREEK  GRAMMAR  IN  OUR  VERSION. 

I  HAVE  already  spoken  of  the  English  Grammar  of 
our  Translators ;  but  the  Greek  Grammar  is  also  oc 
casionally  at  fault.  The  most  recurring  blemishes 
which  have  been  noted  here,  are  these  :  1.  A  failing 
to  give  due  heed  to  the  presence  or  absence  of  the 
article  ;  they  omit  it  sometimes,  when  it  is  present  in 
their  original,  and  when,  according  to  the  rules  of 
the  language,  it  ought  to  be  preserved  in  the  transla 
tion  ;  they  insert  it,  when  it  is  absent  there,  and  has 
no  claim  to  have  found  admission  from  them.  2.  A 
certain  laxity  in  the  rendering  of  prepositions  ;  for 
example,  HV  is  rendered  as  if  it  was  els,  and  vice  versa  ; 
the  different  forces  of  &*,  as  it  governs  a  genitive  or 
an  accusative,  are  disregarded,  with  other  inaccura 
cies  of  the  same  kind.  3.  Tenses  are  not  always  ac 
curately  discriminated  ;  aorists  are  dealt  with  as  per 
fects,  perfects  as  aorists ;  the  force  of  the  imperfect 
is  not  always  given.  Moods,  too,  and  voices,  are  oc- 


114  ON    SOME   ERRORS   OF   GREEK   GRAMMAR 

casionally  confounded.  4.  Other  grammatical  lapses, 
which  can  not  be  included  in  any  of  these  divisions, 
are  noticeable.  These,  however,  are  the  most  seri 
ous  and  most  recurring.  I  will  give  examples  of 
them  all. 

I.  In  regard  of  the  Greek  article,  our  Translators 
err  in  both  excess  and  defect,  but  oftenest  in  the  lat 
ter.  They  omit  it,  arid  sometimes  not  without  serious 
loss,  in  passages  where  it  ought  to  find  place.  Such 
a  passage  is  Rev.  xvii.  14 :  "  These  are  they  which 
came  out  of  great  tribulation."  Rather,  "  out  of  the 
great  tribulation"  (ex  r~i$  6\i^sus  r'ys  fxeyaX^f).  The 
leaving  out  of  the  article,  so  emphatically  repeated, 
causes  us  to  miss  the  connection  between  this  passage 
and  Matt.  xxiv.  22,  29 ;  Dan.  xii.  1.  It  is  the  char 
acter  of  the  Apocalypse,  the  crowning  book  of  the 
Canon,  that  it  abounds  with  allusions  to  preceding 
Scriptures ;  and,  numerous  as  are  those  that  appear 
on  the  surface,  those  which  lie  a  little  below  the  sur 
face  are  more  numerous  still.  Thus,  there  can  be 
no  doubt  that  allusion  is  here  to  "  the  great  tribula 
tion"  (the  same  phrase,  6\Qig  ^/cxX?])  of  the  last  days, 
the  birth-pangs  of  the  new  creation,  which  our  Lord 
in  his  prophecy  from  the  Mount  had  foretold. 

Heb.  xi.  10.  —  "He  looked  for  a  city  which  hath 
foundations."  Not  so ;  the  language  is  singularly 
emphatic.  "  He  looked  for  the  city  which  hath  the 
foundations"  (T'^V  roCs  dsfxsX/oug  t'^outfav  iroXiv),  that  is, 
the  well-known  and  of  ten-all  uded-to  foundations — in 


IN   OUR   VERSION.  115 

other  words,  he  looked  for  the  New  Jerusalem,  of 
which  it  had  been  already  said,  "  Her  foundations 
are  in  the  hoi}7  mountains"  (Ps.  Ixxxvii.  1 ;  cf.  Isai. 
xxviii.  16)  ;  even  as  in  the  Apocalypse  great  things 
are  spoken  of  these  glorious  foundations  of  the  Heav 
enly  City  (Rev.  xxi.  14,  19,  20).  Let  me  here  ob 
serve  that  those  expositors  seem  to  me  to  be  wholly 
astray  who  make  the  Apostle  to  say  that  Abraham 
looked  forward  to  a  period  when  the  nomad  life  which 
he  was  now  leading  should  cease,  and  his  descendants 
be  established  in  a  well-ordered  city,  the  earthly  Je 
rusalem.  He  may,  indeed,  have  looked  on  to  that  as 
a  pledge  of  better  things  to  come ;  but  never  to  that 
as  "  the  City  having  the  foundations ;"  nor  do  I  sup 
pose  for  an  instant  that  our  Translators  at  all  intended 
.this  ;  but  still,  if  they  had  reproduced  the  force  of  the 
article,  they  would,  in  giving  the  passage  its  true 
emphasis,  have  rendered  such  a  misapprehension  on 
the  part  of  their  readers  well-nigh  impossible. 

John  iii.  10.  — u  Art  thou  a  teacher  of  Israel,  and 
knowest  not  these  things  ?"  Middleton  may  perhaps 
make  too  much  of  o  o^itfxaXocr  here,  as  though  it  singled 
out  Nicodemus  from  among  all  the  Jewish  doctors  as 
the  one  supereminent.  Yet  it  is  equally  incorrect  to 
deny  it  all  force.  It  is,  as  Erasmus  gives  it,  "  ille 
magister  ;"  "  Art  thou  that  teacher,  that  famed  teacher 
of  Israel,  and  yet  art  ignorant  of  these  things  ?"  and 
the  question  loses  an  emphasis,  which  I  can  not  but 
believe,  with  Winer  and  many  more,  it  was  intended 


116     ON  SOME  ERRORS  OF  GREEK  GRAMMAR 

to  have,  by  the  obliteration  in  our  Version  of  the 
force  of  the  article. 

In  other  passages  it  is  plain  that  a  more  complete 
mastery  of  the  use  of  the  article  would  have  modified 
the  rendering  of  a  passage  which  our  Translators  have 
given.  It  would  have  done  so,  I  am  persuaded,  at 
1  Tim.  vi.  2  :  "And  they  that  have  believing  masters, 
let  them  not  despise  them,  because  they  are  brethren, 
but  rather  do  them  service,  because  they  are  faithful 
and  beloved,  partakers  of  the  benefit"  (on  ^oW  sltfi 

xa/   dycwrigTo;,    oi    T/;C;    Sjgpystfjag    dv-TjXajx/3av6|ui£voj).      It    is 

clear  that  for  them  "  partakers  of  the  benefit"  is  but 
a  further  unfolding  of  "  faithful  and  beloved,"  the 
'  benefit'  being  the  grace  and  gift  of  eternal  life,  com 
mon  to  master  and  slave  alike.  But  so  the  article  in 
this  last  clause  has  not  its  rights,  and  the  only  correct 
translation  of  the  passage  will  make  irrfrot  xai  dycMrijro/ 
the  predicate,  and  oi  7%  susgyscriag  dvriXajub/3avojxsvoi  the 
subject.  St.  Paul  reminds  the  slaves  that  they  shall 
serve  believing  masters  the  more  cheerfully  out  of  the 
consideration  that  they  do  not  bestow  their  service 
on  unconverted,  unthankful  lords,  but  rather  that 
they  who  are  "  partakers  of  the  benefit,"  that  is,  the 
benefit  of  their  service,  they  to  whom  this  service 
is  rendered,  are  brethren  in  Christ.  The  Vulgate 
lightly:  "  quia  fideles  suut  et  dilecti,  qui  beneficii 
participes  sunt."  It  needs  only  to  insert  the  words 
u  who  are"  before  '  partakers,'  to  make  our  Version 
correct. 


IN   OUR  VERSION.  117 

But  more  important  than  in  any  of  these  passages, 
as  rendering  serious  doctrinal  misunderstandings  pos 
sible,  is  the  neglect  of  the  article  at  Rom.  v.  15,  17. 
In  place  of  any  observations  of  my  own,  I  will  here 
quote  Bentley's  criticism  on  our  Version.  Having 
found  fault  with  the  rendering  of  o<  iroXXoi,  Rom.  xii.  5, 
he  proceeds  :  "  This  will  enable  us  to  clear  up  another 
place  of  much  greater  consequence,  Rom.  v .;  where 
after  the  Apostle  had  said,  ver.  12,  '  that  by  one  man 
sin  entered  into  the  world,  and  death  by  sin,  and  so 
death  passed  upon  ail  men  (sl$  ira,v<ra.$  dvdpw-Trous),  for 
that  all  have  sinned,'  in  the  rendition  of  this  sentence, 
ver.  15,  he  says,  '  for  if  through  the  offence  of  one 
(<rou  Iv6s)  many  (o»  tfoXXoi)  be  dead'  (so  our  Transla 
tors),  '  much  more  the  grace  of  God  by  one  man  (rou 
£vo'c;)  Jesus  Christ  hath  abounded  unto  many'  (sl$  <rouf 
TroXXo^c).  Now,  who  would  not  wish  that  they  had 
kept  the  articles  in  the  version  which  they  saw  in  the 
original  ?  '  If  through  the  offence  of  the  one1  (that 
is,  Adam)  '  the  many  have  died,  much  more  the  grace 
of  God  by  the  one  man  hath  abounded  unto  the  many.9 
By  this  accurate  version  some  hurtful  mistakes  about 
partial  redemption  and  absolute  reprobation  had  been 
happily  prevented.  Our  English  readers  had  then 
seen,  what  several  of  the  Fathers  saw  and  testified, 
that  oi  -7ro\Xoi,  the  many,  in  an  antithesis  to  the  one, 
are  equivalent  to  #avre£,  all,  in  ver.  12,  and  compre 
hend  the  whole  multitude,  the  entire  species  of  man 
kind,  exclusive  only  of  the  one.  So,  again,  ver.  18 


118  ON    SOME   ERRORS   OF   GREEK    GRAMMAR 

and  19  of  the  same  chapter,  our  Translators  have 
repeated  the  like  mistake ;  where,  when  the  Apostle 
had  said  '  that  as  the  ofience  of  one  was  upon  all  men 
(sis  ifwraLs  avcJpwwous)  to  condemnation,  so  the  righ 
teousness  of  one  was  upon  all  men  to  justification ; 
for,'  adds  he,  '  as  by  the  one  man's  (Vou  gVoV)  disobedi 
ence  the  many  (oJ  ToXX&i)  were  made  sinners ;  so  by 
the  obedience  of  the  one  (Vou  Ivcs)  the  many  (oi  -roXXo,') 
shall  be  made  righteous.'  By  this  version  the  reader 
is  admonished  and  guided  to  remark  that  the  many, 
in  ver.  19,  are  the  same  as  xavres,  all,  in  the  18th. 
But  our  Translators,  when  they  render  it,  '  many  were 
made  sinners,  many  were  made  righteous,'  what  do 
they  do  less  than  lead  and  draw  their  unwary  readers 
into  error  ?"* 

By  far  the  most  frequent  fault  with  our  Translators 
is  the  omission  of  the  article  in  the  translation  when 
it  stands  in  the  original ;  yet  sometimes  they  fall  into 
the  converse  error,  and  insert  an  article  in  the  Eng 
lish  where  it  does  not  stand  in  the  Greek ;  and  this, 
too,  it  may  be,  not  without  injury  to  the  sense  and 
intention  of  the  sacred  writer.  It  is  so  at  Rom.  ii.  14, 
where  we  make  St.  Paul  to  say,  "  For  when  the  Gen~ 
tiles,  which  have  not  the  law,  do  by  nature  the  things 
contained  in  the  law,  these,  having  not  the  law,  are  a 
law  unto  themselves."  One  might  conclude  from  this, 
that  the  Apostle  regarded  such  a  fulfilling  of  the  law 
on  the  part  of  the  Gentiles,  as  ordinary  and  normal. 

*  A  Sermon  upon  Popery.     Works,  vol.  iii.,  p.  245;  cf.  p.  129. 


IN    OUR   VERSION.  119 

Yet  it  is  not  r  i  ^vr,  but  ttv>n,  and  the  passage  must  be 
rendered,  "For  when  Gentiles,  which  have  not  the 
law,"  <fec.,  the  Apostle  having  in  these  words  his  eye 
on  the  small  election  of  heathendom,  the  exceptions, 
and  not  the  rule. 

St.  Paul  has  been  sometimes  charged  with  exag 
geration  in  declaring  that  "  the  love  of  money  is  the 
root  of  all  evil"  (1  Tim  vi.  10)  ;  and  there  have  been 
attempts  to  mitigate  the  strength  of  the  assertion,  as 
that  when  he  said  "  all  evil,"  he  only  meant  "  much 
evil."  The  help,  however,  does  not  lie  here  ;  but  in 
more  strictly  observing  what  he  does  say.  "  The  love 
of  money,"  he  declares,  "is"  —  not  "the  root,"  but 
—  "a  root,  of  all  evil."  He  does  not  affirm  that  this 
is  the  bitter  root  from  which  all  evil  springs,  but  a 
bitter  root  from  which  all  evil  may  spring ;  there  is 
no  sin  of  which  it  may  not  be,  as  of  which  it  has  not 
been,  the  impulsive  motive. 

But  perhaps  at  another  place,  Acts  xxvi.  2,  the 
insertion  of  the  article  in  the  English,  where  there  is 
no  article  in  the  Greek,  works  still  more  injuriously. 
St.  Paul  would  by  no  means  have  affirmed  or  admit 
ted  that  "  the  Jews"  accused  him  ;  all  true  Jews,  all 
who  held  fast  the  promises  made  to  the  Fathers,  and 
now  fulfilled  in  Christ,  were  on  his  side.  He  is  ac 
cused  "  of  Jews"  unfaithful  members  of  the  house  of 
Abraham,  by  no  means  "  of  the  Jews."  The  force 
of  ver.  7  is  still  more  seriously  impaired.  In  that 
verse  St.  Paul  puts  before  Agrippa,  a  Jewish  prose- 


120  ON   SOME   ERRORS   OF   GREEK   GRAMMAR 

lyte,  and  therefore  capable  of  understanding  him,  the 
monstrous,  self-contradicting  absurdity,  that  for  cher 
ishing  and  asserting  the  Messias-hope  of  his  nation, 
he  should  now  be  accused  —  not  of  heathens,  that 
would  have  been  nothing  strange — but  "  of  Jews" 
when  that  hope  was  indeed  the  central  treasure  of  the 
whole  Jewish  nation.  —  Before  leaving  this  point,  I 
may  observe  that  "  a  Hebrew  of  Hebrews"  (Phil.  iii. 
5),  one,  namely,  of  pure  Hebrew  blood  and  language 
('E/3paib£  eg  'E/3pa~wv)?  while  it  is  more  accurate,  would 
tell  also  its  own  story  much  better  than  "  a  Hebrew 
of  the  Hebrews,"  as  we  have  it  now. 

II.  Our  Translators  do  not  always  seize  the  precise 
force  of  the  prepositions.  They  have  not  done  so  in 
the  passages  which  follow : — 

John  iv.  6.  —  "Jesus  therefore  being  wearied  with 
his  journey,  sat  thus  on  the  well."  It  should  be  ra 
ther,  "by  the  wrell"  (S-TT/  vy  -^773),  in  its  immediate 
neighborhood.  On  two  other  occasions,  namely,  Mark 
xiii.  29 ;  John  v.  2,  they  have  rightly  gone  back  from 
the  more  rigorous  rendering  of  sir  I  with  a  dative,  to 
which  they  have  here  adhered :  cf.  Exod.  ii.  15, 
LXX.* 

Heb.  vi.  7.  —  "  Herbs  meet  for  them  by  whom  it  is 
dressed."  The  Translators  give  in  the  margin  as  an 
alternative,  "for  whom"  But  it  is  no  mere  alterna 
tive;  of  Si1  o\js  (not  <V  iiv),  it  is  the  only  rendering 

*  Yet  it  ought  to  be  said  that  Winer  (Gramm.,  §  52,  c.)  is  on  the 
side  of  our  Version  as  it  stands. 


IN   OUR   VERSION.  121 

which  can  be  admitted.  The  rendering  which  has 
been  preferred,  besides  being  faulty  in  grammar,  dis 
turbs  the  spiritual  image  which  underlies  the  passage. 
The  heart  of  man  is  here  the  earth ;  man  is  the  dres 
ser  ;  but  the  spiritual  culture  goes  forward,  not  that 
the  earth  may  bring  forth  that  which  is  meet  for  him, 
the  dresser  by  whom,  but  for  God,  the  owner  of  the 
soil,  for  whom,  it  is  dressed.  The  plural  oV  <rJ<r,  instead 
of  <v  ov,  need  not  trouble  us,  nor  remove  us  from  this, 
the  only  right  interpretation.  The  earlier  Latin  ver 
sion  had  it  rightly  ;  see  Tertullian,  De  Pudic.,  c.  20  : 

"  Terra  enim  quae peperit  herbam  aptam  his, 

propter  quos  et  colitur,"  &c. ;  but  the  Vulgate,  "  a 
quibus"  anticipates  our  mistake,  in  which  we  only 
follow  the  English  translations  preceding. 

Luke  xxiii.  42.  —  "And  he  said  unto  Him,  Lord, 
remember  me  when  Thou  comest  into  thy  kingdom" 
But  how  could  Christ  come  into  his  kingdom,  when 
He  is  Himself  the  centre  of  the  kingdom,  and  brings 
the  kingdom  with  Him  ?  The  passage  will  gain  im 
mensely  when,  leaving  that  strange  and  utterly  un 
warranted  assumption  that  e/V,  a  preposition  of  motion, 
is  convertible  with  sv,  a  preposition  of  rest ;  and  thus 
that  sv  <ryj  f3a.<fi\sia,  which  stands  here,  is  the  same  as 
sis  *"nv  jSarfiXsiav,  we  translate,  "  Lord,  remember  me 
when  Thou  comest  in  thy  kingdom"  that  is,  "  with 
all  thy  glorious  kingdom  about  Thee,"  as  is  so  sub 
limely  set  forth,  Rev.  xix.  14 ;  cf.  Jude  14 ;  2  Thess. 
i.  7  ;  Matt.  xxv.  31  (=v  ^  &>r?]).  It  is  the  stranger 

'6    - 


122  ON   SOME   ERRORS   OF   GREEK   GRAMMAR 

that  our  Translators  should  have  fallen  into  this  er 
ror,  seeing  that  they  have  translated  spx^svov  sv  ry 
pouffreiq,  aikoj  (Matt.  xvi.  28)  quite  correctly,  u  com 
ing  in  his  kingdom"  The  Vulgate  has  "  in  regno 
tuo"  there,  although  it  shares  the  error  of  our  Trans 
lation,  and  has  "  in  regnum  tuum"  here.  The  exe- 
getical  tact  of  Maldonatus  overcomes  on  this,  as  on 
many  other  occasions,  his  respect  for  his  authentic 
Vulgate,  and  he  comments  thus :  "  Itaque  non  est 
sensus,  Cum  veneris  ad  regnandum,  sed,  Cum  veneris 
jam  regnans,  cum  veneris  non  ad  acquirendum  reg 
num,  sed  regno  jam  acquisito,  quemadmodum  venturus 
ad  judicium  est."  The  same  faulty  rendering  of  £v, 
and  assumption  that  it  may  have  the  force  of  els,  oc 
curs,  Gal.  i.  6 ;  and  indeed  this,  or  the  converse,  in 
too  many  other  passages  as  well.* 

2  Cor.  xi.  3.  — "  But  I  fear  lest  ....  your  minds 
should  be  corrupted  from  the  simplicity  that  is  in 
Christ"  (ct-Tro  <r?j£  aflrXorijTog1  r^s  sis  TOV  Xpitfrdv).  Here, 
again,  the  injurious  supposition  that  sis  and  ev  may  be 
confounded,  has  been  at  work,  and  to  serious  loss  in 
the  bringing  out  of  the  meaning  of  the  passage.  The 
AflrXortjs  here  is  the  simple,  undivided  affection,  the  sin 
gleness  of  heart,  of  the  Bride,  the  Church,  sis  Xpirfro'v, 
toward  Christ.  It  is  not  their  "  simplicity  in  Christ" 
or  Christian  simplicity,  which  the  Apostle '  fears  lest 

*  See  Winer's  Gramm.,  §  54,  4,  where  he  enters  at  length  into  the 
question  whether  EJJ  is  ever  used  for  iv,  or  iv  for  ci$,  in  the  New  Tes 
lament.  He  denies  both. 


IN   OUR   VERSION.  123 

they  may  through  addiction  to  worldly  wisdom  forfeit 
and  let  go  ;  but,  still  moving  in  the  images  of  espousals 
and  marriage,  that  they  may  not  bring  a  simple,  undi 
vided  heart  to  Christ.  If  after  <WXoVr,To$  we  should 
also  read  xai  *%  ayvorrjros,  which  seems  probable,  it 
will  then  be  clearer  still  what  St.  Paul's  intention  was. 
2  Pet.  i.  5-7.  — "  Add  to  your  faith  virtue,  and  to 
virtue  knowledge,  and  to  knowledge  temperance,  and 
to  temperance  patience,  and  to  patience  godliness," 

&C.  (sifi'Xop'q'yytfa-TS  ev  <rji  fforn   ujxwv  <n}v  dp£-r»jv,  x.  r.  X.) 

Tyndale  had  rendered  the  passage :  "  In  your  faith 
minister  virtue,  and  in  your  virtue  knowledge,"  &c., 
and  all  translations  up  to  the  Authorized  had  followed 
him.  Henry  More  (On  Godliness,  b.  8,  c.  3)  has 
well  expressed  the  objection  to  the  present  version : 
"  Grotius  would  have  ev  to  be  redundant  here  ;  so  that 
his  suffrage  is  for  the  English  translation.  But,  for 
my  own  part,  I  think  that  sv  is  so  far  from  being  re 
dundant  that  it  is  essential  to  the  sentence,  and  inter 
posed  that  we  might  understand  a  greater  mystery 
than  the  mere  adding  of  so  many  virtues  one  to  an 
other,  which  would  be  all  that  could  be  expressly 
signified  if  sv  were  left  out.  But  the  preposition  here 
signifying  causality,  there  is  more  than  a  mere  enu 
meration  of  those  divine  graces.  For  there  is  also 
implied  how  naturally  they  rise  one  out  of  another, 
and  that  they  have  a  causal  dependence  one  of  anoth 
er."  See  this  same  thought  beautifully  carried  out 
in  detail  by  Bengel,  in  loco. 


124          ON   SOME   ERRORS   OF   GREEK   GRAMMAR 

III.  Our  Translators  do  not  always  give  the  true 
force  of  tenses,  moods,  and  voices. 

Oftentimes  the  present  tense  is  used  in  the  New 
Testament,  especially  by  St.  John  in  the  Apocalypse, 
to  express  the  eternal  Now  of  Him  for  whom  there 
can  be  no  past  and  no  future.  It  must  be  consid 
ered  a  fault,  when  this  is  let  go,  and  exchanged  for  a 
past  tense  in  our  Version.  Take,  for  instance,  Rev. 
iv.  5 :  "  Out  of  the  throne  proceeded  lightnings,  and 
thunderings,  and  voices."  But  it  is  much  more  than 
this  ;  not  merely  at  that  one  moment  when  St.  John 
beheld,  but  evermore  out  of  his  throne  proceed  (sx-rro- 
^OVTCU)  these  symbols  of  the  presence  and  of  the  ter 
rible  majesty  of  God.  Throughout  this  chapter,  and 
at  chapter  i.  14-16,  there  is  often  a  needless,  and 
sometimes  an  absolutely  incorrect,  turning  of  the  pres 
ent  of  eternity  into  the  past  of  time. 

Elsewhere  a  past  is  turned  without  cause  into  a 
present.  It  is  so  at  Acts  xxviii.  4  :  "  No  doubt  this 
man  is  a  murderer,  whom,  though  he  hath  escaped 
the  sea,  yet  Vengeance  suffereth  not  to  live."  A  fine 
turn  in  the  words  of  these  -barbarous  islanders  has 
been  missed  in  our  Version,  and  in  all  the  English 
versions  except  the  Geneva.  The  /3ap/3apo»,  the  '  na 
tives,'  as  I  think  the  word  might  have  been  fairly 
translated,  who  must  have  best  known  the  qualities 
of  the  vipers  on  the  island,  are  so  confident  of  the 
deadly  character  of  that  one  which  has  fastened  itself 
on  Paul's  hand,  that  they  regard  and  speak  of  him  as 


IN   OUR   VERSION.  125 

one  already  dead,  and  in  this  sense  use  a  past  tense ; 
he  is  one  whom  "  Vengeance  suffered  not  (oux  s/Wev) 
to  live.''  Bengel :  "  Non  sivit;  jam  nullum  putant 
esse  Paulum  ;"  De  Wette  :  "  nicht  habt  leben  lassen." 
Let  me  observe  here,  by-the-way,  that  our  modern 
editions  of  the  Bible  should  not  have  dropped  the 
capital  Y  with  which  '  Vengeance'  was  spelt  in  the 
exemplar  edition  of  1611.  These  islanders,  in  their 
simple  but  most  truthful  moral  instincts,  did  not  con 
template  '  Vengeance'  or  Ai'xrj  in  the  abstract ;  but 
personified  her  as  a  goddess ;  and  our  Translators, 
who  are  by  no  means  prodigal  of  their  capitals,  in 
their  manner  of  spelling  the  word,  did  their  best  to 
mark  and  reproduce  this  personification  of  the  divine 
Justice,  although  the  carelessness  of  printers  has  since 
let  it  go. 

Elsewhere  there  is  confusion  between  the  uses  of 
the  present  and  the  perfect.  There  is  such,  for  ex 
ample,  at  Luke  xviii.  12 :  "I  give  tithes  of  all  that 
I  possess."  •  But  oVa  x-rw^ai  is  not  "  all  that  I  possess" 
but  "  all  that  I  acquire"  ("  qua3  mihi  acquiro,  quae 
mihi  redeunt").  The  Vulgate  which  has  '  possideo,' 
shares,  perhaps  suggested,  our  error.  In  the  perfect 
xexr^aj  the  word  first  obtains  the  force  of  "  I  possess," 
or,  in  other  words,  "  I  have  acquired"*  The  Phari 
see  would  boast  himself  to  be,  so  to  say,  another 
Jacob,  such  another  as  he  who  had  said,  "  Of  all  that 
Thou  sh  ill  give,  me,  I  will  surely  give  the  tenth  unto 

*  See  Winer's  Gramm.,  $  41,  4. 


126     ON  SOME  ERRORS  OF  GREEK  GRAMMAR 

Thee"  (Gen.  xxviii.  22;  cf.  xiv.  20),  a  careful  per 
former  of  that  precept  of  the  law,  which  said,  "  Thou 
shalt  truly  tithe  all  the  increase  of  thy  seed,  that  the 
field  bringeth  forth  year  by  year"  (Deut.  xiv.  22)  ; 
but  change  '  acquire'  into  '  possess,'  and  how  much  of 
this  we  lose ! 

We  must  associate  with  this  passage  another,  name 
ly,  Luke  xxi.  19  :  "  In  your  patience  possess  ye  your 
souls;"  for  the  same  correction  ought  there  to  find 
place.  It  is  rather,  "  In  your  patience  make  ye  your 
souls  your  own"  —  that  is,  "  In  and  by  your  patience 
or  endurance  acquire  your  souls  as  indeed  your  own" 
("  salvas  obtinete").  Thus  Winer:  "  Durch  Aus- 
dauer  erwerbt  euch  eure  Seelen ;  sie  werden  dann 
erst  euer  wahres,  unverlierbares  Eigenthum  werden." 
It  is  noticeable  that  orir  Translators  have  corrected 
the  <  possess'  of  all  the  preceding  versions  at  Matt. 
x.  9,  exchanged  this  for  the  more  accurate  '  provide' 
(XT^C^),  or,  as  it  is  in  the  margin,  'get;'  which 
makes  it  strange  that  they  should  have  allowed  it  in 
these  other  places  to  stand. 

Imperfects  lose  their  proper  force,  and  are  dealt 
with  as  aorists  and  perfects.  The  vividness  of  the 
narration  often  suffers  from  the  substitution  of  the 
pure  historic  for  what  may  be  called  the  descriptive 
tense ;  as,  for  example,  at  Luke  xiv.  7 :  "  He  put 
forth  a  parable  to  those  that  were  bidden  when  He 
marked  how  they  chose  out  the  chief  rooms."  Read, 
"  how  they  were  choosing'  out  (s^Xfyovro)  the  chief 


IN   OUR   VERSION.  127 

rooms"  —  the  sacred  historian  placing  the  Lord's  ut 
terance  of  the  parable  in  the  midst  of  the  events 
which  he  is  describing.  So  Acts  iii.  1 :  "  Now  Peter 
and  John  went  up  together  into  the  temple."  Read, 
"were  going  up"  (avs/Saivov).  Again,  Mark  ii.  18: 
"  And  the  disciples  of  John  and  of  the  Pharisees  used 
to  fast"  Read,  "were  fasting-"  (?<rav  v^ove^ovrscr), 
namely,  at  that  very  time  ;  which  gives  a  special 
vigor  to  their  remonstrances ;  they  were  keeping  a 
fast  while  the  Lord's  disciples  were  celebrating  a 
festival.  The  incomplete,  imperfect  sense,  which  so 
often  belongs  to  this  tense,  and  from  which  it  derives 
its  name,  they  often  fail  to  give ;  the  commencement 
of  a  work  which  is  not  brought  to  a  conclusion,  the 
consent  and  co-operation  of  another  party,  which  was 
necessary  for  its  completion,  having  been  withheld ; 
in  such  cases  the  will  is  taken  for  the  deed.*  Thus, 
Luke  i.  59:  "And  they  called  him  Zacharias."  It 
is  not  so,  for  Elizabeth  would  not  allow  this  name  to 
be  given  him ;  but  with  the  true  force  of  the  incom 
plete,  imperfect  tense,  "  they  were  calling'  (sxaXouv) 
him  Zacharias."  Once  more,  Luke  v.  6  :  "  And  their 
net  brake."  Had  this  been  so,  they  would  scarcely 
have  secured  the  fish  at  all.  Rather,  "  was  in  the 
act  of  breaking,"  or  "  was  -at  the  point  to  break" 
(Jis^ijyvuTo) .  Other  passages  where  they  do  not  give 
the  force  of  the  imperfect,  but  deal  with  it  as  though 
it  had  been  a  perfect  or  an  aorist,  are  John  iii.  22 ; 

*  See  Jelf ' s  Kiihner's  Gramm.,  §  398,  2. 


128    ON  SOME  ERRORS  OF  GREEK  GRAMMAR 

iv.  47 ;  vi.  21 ;  Luke  xxiv.  82 ;  Matt.  xiii.  34 ;  Acts 
xi.  20. 

Aorists  are  rendered  as  if  they  were  perfects  ;  and 
perfects  as  if  they  were  aorists.  Thus,  we  have  an 
example  of  the  first,  Luke  i.  19,  where  d-ffsj-^w  is 
translated  as  though  it  were  cU-sV-aXuaj,  "  I  am  sent," 
instead  of  "  I  was  sent."  Gabriel  contemplates  his 
mission,  not  at  the  moment  of  its  present  fulfilment, 
but  from  that  of  his  first  sending  forth  from  the  pres 
ence  of  God.  Another  example  of  the  same  occurs 
at  2  Pet.  i.  14 :  "  Knowing  that  shortly  I  must  put 
off  this  my  tabernacle,  even  as  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
hath  shewed  me."  By  this  "hath  shewed  me,"  we 
lose  altogether  the  special  allusion  to  an  historic  mo 
ment  in  the  Apostle's  life,  to  John  xxi.  18,  19,  which 
would  at  once  come  out,  if  sfyx^ffe  JULOI  had  been  ren 
dered,  "  shewed  me."  Doubtless  there  are  passages 
which  would  make  difficult  the  universal  application 
of  the  rule  that  perfects  should  be  translated  as  per 
fects,  and  aorists  as  aorists ;  thus,  Luke  xiv.  18,  19, 
where  one  might  hesitate  in  rendering  ^yo'patfa  "  I 
bought"  instead  of  "  I  have  bought"  and  some  at 
least  in  the  long  line  of  aorists,  J&gatfa,  sVsXg/wtfa,  eya- 
vspwrfa,  i'Xa/Sov  (ver.  4,  6,  8),  in  the  high-priestly  prayer, 
John  xvii.  Still,  on  these  passages  no  conclusion  can 
be  grounded  that  the  writers  of  the  New  Testament 
did  not  always  observe  the  distinction.* 

Again,  the  force  of  the  aorist  is  missed,  though  in 

*  See  Winer,  Gramm.,  §  41,  5. 


IN   OUR   VERSION.  129 

another  way,  at  Mark  xvi.  2,  where  dvars/Xavro^  rou 
TjXi'ou  is  translated,  "  at  the  rising  of  the  sun."  It  can 
only  be,  "  when  the  sun  was  risen."  Did  the  anxiety 
to  avoid  a  slight  seeming  discrepancy  between  this 
statement  and  that  of  two  other  Evangelists  (Matt, 
xxviii.  1 ;  Mark  xvi.  2)  modify  the  translation  here  ? 

Examples,  on  the  other  hand,  of  perfects  turned 
into  aorists  are  frequent.  Thus,  at  Luke  xiii.  2 : 
"  Suppose  ye  that  these  Galileans  were  sinners  above 
all  the  Galileans,  because  they  syffered  such  things  ?" 
Rather,  "  because  they  have  suffered  (Vsiro'viWiv)  such 
things."  Our  Lord  contemplates  the  memorable  ca 
tastrophe  by  which  they  perished,  not  as  something 
belonging  merely  to  the  historic  past ;  but  as  a  fact 
reaching  into  the  present ;  still  vividly  presenting 
itself  to  the  mind's  eye  of  his  hearers. 

One  other  example  must  suffice.  In  that  great  doc 
trinal  passage,  Col.  i.  13-22,  St.  Paul  declares,  ver. 
16,  that  "  by  Christ  were  all  things  created"  The 
aorist  sxr.'tf^  has  its  right  force  given  to  it  here ;  but 
the  Apostle  in  a  most  remarkable  way,  when  in  the 
last  clause  of  the  verse  he  resumes  the  doctrine  of  the 
whole,  changes  the  aorist  sxr/<rd>j  for  the  perfect  gxnovai. 
And  why  ?  Because  he  is  no  longer  looking  at  the 
one  historic  act  of  creation,  but  at  the  permanent  re 
sults  flowing  on  into  all  time  and  eternity  therefrom. 
Our  Translators  have  not  followed  him  here,  but,  as 
it'  no  change  had  been  made,  they  render  this  clause 
also  :  "All  things  were  created  by  Him,  and  for  Him ;" 

6* 


130  ON   SOME   ERRORS   OF   GREEK   GRAMMAR 

but  read  rather:  "All  things  have  been  created  by 
Him,  and  for  Him."* 

Imperfects  and  aorists  are  turned  without  necessity 
into  pluperfects.  It  is  admitted  by  all  that  an  aorist, 
under  certain  conditions,  may  have  this  sense  of  a  past 
behind  another  past  ;f  nor,  according  to  some,  can 
this  force  be  altogether  denied  to  the  imperfect ;  but 
a  pluperfect  force  is  given  in  our  Version  to  these 
tenses,  where  certainly  no  sort  of  necessity  requires 
it.  Thus,  for  the  words,  "  because  He  had  done  these 
things  on  the  sabbath"  (John  v.  16),  read,  "because 
He  did  (e^o/si)  these  things  on  the  sabbath."  And, 
again,  in  the  same  chapter  read,  "  for  Jesus  conveyed 
Himself  away"  (iggveurfsv)  ;  that  is,  so  soon  as  this  dis 
cussion  between  the  Jews  and  the  healed  man  arose, 
not,  "had  conveyed  Himself  away"  previously,  as  our 
Version  would  imply. 

Neither  do  our  Translators  always  give  its  right 
force  to  a  middle  verb.  They  fail  to  do  so  at  Phil, 
ii.  15  :  "  among  whom  ye  shine  as  lights  in  the  world." 
To  justify  these  words,  "  ye  shine"  which  are  shared 
by  all  the  Versions  of  the  English  Hexapla,  St.  Paul 
ought  to  have  written  <paiWe,  and  not  (paivstf&e,  as  he 
has  written.  *aivsiv,  indeed,  is  to  shine  (John  i.  5 ; 


*  The  fact  that  we  almost  all  learn  our  grammar  from  the  Latin, 
and  that  in  the  Latin  the  perfect  indicative  does  its  own  duty  and  that 
of  the  aorist  as  well,  renders  us  very  unobservant  of  inaccuracies  in 
this  particular  kind  till  we  have  been  specially  trained  to  observe 
them. 

t  What  these  conditions  are,  see  Winer's  Grnmm.,  §  41,  5. 


IN    OUR   VERSION.  131 


2  Pet.  i.  19  ;  Rev.  i.  16)  ;  but  <paiW0a«  to  appear  (Matt. 
xxiii.  27  ;  1  Pet.  iv.  18  ;  Jam.  iv.  14).  It  is  worthy 
of  note  that  while  the  Vulgate,  having  '  lucetis,'  shares 
and  anticipates  our  error,  the  earlier  Italic  Version 
was  free  from  it  ;  as  is  evident  from  the  verse  as  quoted 
by  Augustine  (Enarr.  in  Psalm.,  cxlvi.  4)  :  "  In  qui- 
bus  apparetis  tanquam  luminaria  in  mundo." 

Sometimes  the  force  of  a  passive  is  lost.  Thus  is 
it  at  2  Cor.  v.  10  :  "  For  we  must  all  appear  before 
the  judgment-seat  of  Christ."  The  words  contain  a 
yet  more  solemn  and  awful  announcement  than  this  : 
"  For  we  must  all  be  made  manifest"  (vavras  r^3.s 
9  a  v  s  p  u  &  ri  v  a  •  for)  ,  "  exhibited  as  what  we  indeed  are, 
displayed  in  our  true  colors,  the  secrets  of  our  hearts 
disclosed,  and  we,  so  to  speak,  turned  inside  out" 
(for  the  word  means  as  much  as  this)  "  before  the 
judgment-seat  of  Christ."  There  is  often  reason  to 
think  that  the  exposition  of  Chrysostom  exercised 
considerable  influence  on  our  Translators.  Here  it 
might  have  done  so  with  benefit  ;  for,  commenting  on 
these  words  (in  Cor.  Horn.,  10),  he  says:  "ou  /ap 

•flrapatfTrjvai    r^ag   atfXoj£   6sT,  dXXa   xai    (pavspwdrjvcu," 

showing  that  he  would  not  have  been  satisfied  with 
what  our  Translators  have  here  done. 

With  one  or  two  miscellaneous  observations  I  will 
conclude  this  chapter.  It  would  be  very  impertinent 
to  suppose  that  our  Translators,  who  numbered  in 
their  company  many  of  the  first  scholars  of  their  time, 
were  not  perfectly  at  home  in  the  use  of  *a%c,  and 


132  ON    SOME   ERRORS   OF   GREEK   GRAMMAR 

familiar  with  the  very  simple  modifications  of  its 
meaning  as  employed  with  or  without  an  article  ;  and 
yet  it  must  be  owned  that  they  do  not  always  observe 
its  rules.  One  example  may  suffice. 

Acts  x.  12. — "  Wherein  were  all  manner  of  four- 
footed  beasts  of  the  earth."  But-*avra  rd  rsrpa*o(Ja 
can  not  possibly  have  the  meaning  ascribed  to  it  here. 
Translate  rather:  "  Wherein  were  all  the  four-footed 
beasts  of  the  earth"  — "  omnia  animalia,"  as  the  Vul 
gate  rightly  has  it.  Here,  probably,  as  Winer  ob 
serves,  they  were  tempted  to  forsake  the  more  accu 
rate  rendering  from  an  unwillingness  to  ascribe  some 
thing  which  seemed  to  them  like  exaggeration  to  the 
sacred  historian  :  how,  they  said  to  themselves,  could 
"  all  the  four-footed  beasts  of  the  earth"  be  contained 
in  that  sheet  ?  For,  indeed,  this  shrinking  from  a 
meaning  which  an  accurate  translation  would  render 
up,  is  a  very  frequent  occasion  of  mistranslation,  and 
also  of  warped  exegesis.  It  is  much  better,  however, 
that  the  translator  should  go  forward  on  his  task 
without  regard  to  such  considerations  as  these.  The 
Word  of  God  can  take  care  of,  and  vindicate  itself, 
and  does  not  need  to  be  thus  taken  under  man's  pro 
tection. 

It  is  remarkable  how  little  careful  our  Translators 
are  to  note  the  difference  between  the  verb  of  being- 
and  that  of  becoming';  between  dpi  and  ^s'/ova.  It 
would  not  be  easy  to  find  the  pas? age  in  the  New  Tes 
tament  where  these  are  confounded,  but  they  confound 


IN    OUR   VERSION.  133 

them  frequently,  and  often  to  our  loss.  Thus,  at  Heb. 
v.  11,  the  Apostle  complains  of  the  difficulty  of  un 
folding  some  hard  truths  to  those  whom  he  addresses, 
"  seeing  ye  are  dull  of  hearing."  But  the  rebuke  is 
sharper  than  this — "  seeing  ye  have  become  dull  of 
hearing"  (sirs/  vwdpo/  ys^o'vars  roug  axca??).  This  would 
imply  that  it  was  not  so  once,  in  the  former  days, 
when  they  first  were  enlightened  (x.  32)  ;  but  that 
now  they  had  gone  back  from  that  liveliness  of  spirit 
ual  apprehension  which  once  they  had  (see  Chrysos- 
tom).  The  Vulgate  has  it  rightly :  "  Quoniam  imbe- 
cilles  facti  estis  ad  audiendum ;"  being  followed  by 
the  Rheims :  "  Because  ye  are  become  weak  to  hear ;" 
so,  too,  De  Wette :  "Da  ihr  trage  von  Verstande 
geworden  seid"  At  Matt.  xxiv.  32,  there  is  the 
same  loss  of  the  true  force  of  the  word.  Not  the 
being  tender  of  the  branch  of  the  fig-tree,  but  the 
becoming  tender,  is  the  sign  of  the  nearness  of  sum 
mer. 

In  other  points  our  Translators  are  without  fault, 
where  yet  the  modern  copies  by  careless  reproduction 
of  their  work  involve  them  in  apparent  error,  which 
indeed  is  none  of  theirs,  but  that  of  the  too  care 
less  guardians  of  their  text.  They  have  their  own 
burden  to  bear ;  they  ought  not  to  be  made  to  bear 
the  burden  of  others.  But  they  do  so  at  Matt.  xii. 
23.  Correcting  all  our  previous  translations,  they 
rendered  the  words,  p-fa  ovrtg  sVnv  6  u»^  Aa/3"#,  with 
perfect  accuracy  :  "  Is  this  the  Son  of  David  ?"  fully 


134      ERRORS   OF   GREEK   GRAMMAR   IN   OUR   VERSION. 

understanding  that,  according  to  the  different  idiomi 
of  the  Greek  and  English,  the  negative  particle  of  the 
original  was  not  to  reappear  in  the  English  ;  cf.  Acts 
vii.  42  ;  John  viii.  22.  I  am  unable  to  say  when  the 
reading,  which  appears  in  all  our  modern  Bibles,  "  Is 
not  this  the  Son  of  David  ?"  first  crept  in  ;  it  is  already 
in  Hammond,  1659  ;  but  it  is  little  creditable  to  those 
who  should  have  kept  their  text  inviolate,  that  they 
have  not  exercised  a  stricter  vigilance  over  it.  It  is 
curious  that,  having  escaped  error  here,  our  Transla 
tors  should  yet  have  fallen  into  it  in  the  exactly  simi 
lar  phrase  at  John  iv.  29,  pvn  ouVfc  £tfriv  6  XpirfroV; 
where  they  do  render,  "  Is  not  this  the  Christ  ?"  but 
should  have  rendered,  "Is  this  the  Christ?"  The 
Samaritan  woman  in  her  joy,  as  speaking  of  a  thing 
too  good  to  be  true,  which  she  will  suggest,  but  dare 
not  absolutely  affirm,  asks  of  her  fellow-countrymen, 
"  Is  this  the  Christ  ?  —  can  this  be  He  whom  we  have 
looked  for  so  long  ?"  —  expecting  in  reply  not  a  nega 
tive  but  an  affirmative  answer. 


QUESTIONABLE   RENDERINGS   OF   WORDS.  135 


CHAPTER   VIII. 

ON   SOME   QUESTIONABLE   RENDERINGS   OF   WORDS. 

THERE  are  a  certain  number  of  passages  in  which 
no  one  can  charge  our  Translators  with  error,  the 
version  they  have  given  being  entirely  defensible,  and 
numbering  among  its  defenders  some,  it  may  be  many, 
well  worthy  to  be  heard ;  while  yet  another  version 
on  the  whole  will  commend  itself  as  preferable  to  that 
which  they  have  adopted.  Let  me  adduce  a  few  pas 
sages  where,  to  me  at  least,  it  seems  there  is  a  greater 
probability,  in  some  a  far  greater,  in  favor  of  some 
other  translation  rather  than  of  that  which  they  have 
admitted. 

Matt.  vi.  27  (cf.  Luke  xii.  25).  — "Which  of  you 
by  taking  thought  can  add  one  cubit  to  his  stature  ?" 
Erasmus  was,  I  believe,  the  first  who  suggested  the 
rendering  of  »jXixfa  not  by  <  stature,'  but  by  "  length 
of  life ;"  and  this  his  suggestion  has  since  found  ac 
ceptance  with  a  large  number  of  interpreters ;  with 
Hammond,  Wolf,  Olshausen,  Meyer,  and  others.  While 


136  ON    SOME    QUESTIONABLE 

the  present  translation  may  be  abundantly  justified, 
yet  this  certainly  appears  far  preferable  to  me,  and 
for  the  following  reasons  :  a.  In  that  natural  rhetoric 
of  which  our  Lord  was  the  great  master,  He  would 
have  adduced  some  very  small  measure,  and  reminded 
his  hearers  that  they  could  not  add  even  this  to  their 
stature ;  He  would  not  have  adduced  a  cubit,  which 
is  about  a  foot  and  a  half;  but  He  would  have  de 
manded,  "  Which  of  you  with  all  your  carking  and 
caring  can  add  an  inch  or  a  hair's  breadth  to  his 
stature  ?"  /3.  Men  do  not  practically  take  thought 
about  adding  to  their  stature ;  it  is  not  an  object  of 
desire  to  one  in  a  thousand  to  be  taller  than  God  has 
made  him ;  this  could  scarcely  therefore  be  cited  as 
one  of  the  vain  solicitudes  of  men.  On  the  other 
hand,  everything  exactly  fits  when  we  understand  our 
Lord  to  be  asking  this  question  about  length  of  life. 
The  cubit,  which  is  much  when  compared  with  a  man's 
stature,  is  infinitesimally  small,  and  therefore  most 
appropriate,  when  compared  to  his  length  of  life,  that 
life  being  contemplated  as  a  course,  or  <Jpo/xo, ,  which 
he  may  attempt,  but  ineffectually,  to  prolong.  And 
then,  further,  this  the  prolonging  of  life  is  something 
which  men  do  seek ;  striving,  by  various  precautions, 
by  solicitous  care,  to  lengthen  the  period  of  their 
mortal  existence ;  to  which  yet  they  can  not  add  a 
cubit,  no,  not  a  hand's  breadth,  more  than  God  has 
apportioned  to  it. 

Luke  ii.  49.  — "  Wist  ye  not  that  I  must  be  about 


RENDERINGS   OF   WORDS.  137 

my  Father's  business  ?"  But  sv  rug  TO?  Harpls  will  as 
well  mean,  "  in  my  Father's  house  :"  and  if  the  words 
will  mean  this  as  well,  they  will  surely  mean  it  bet 
ter.  We  shall  thus  have  a  more  direct  answer  on 
the  part  of  the  Child  Jesus  to  the  implied  rebuke  of 
his  blessed  Mother's  words,  "  Behold  thy  father  and 
1  have  sought  Thee  sorrowing ;"  to  which  he  answers, 
"How  is  it  that  ye  sought  Me?"  —  that  is,  in  any 
other  place  ?  "  Wist  ye  not  that  I  must  be  in  my 
Father's  house  ?  here  in  the  temple  ;  and  here  without 
lengthened  seeking  ye  might  have  found  me  at  once." 
There  was  a  certain  misconception  in  respect  of  his 
person  and  character,  which  had  led  them  to  look 
for  Him  in  other  places  of  resort  rather  than  in  the 
temple. 

John  xii.  6. — "He  was  a  thief,  and  had  the  bag, 
and  bare  what  was  put  therein."  I  can  not  but  think 
that  it  was  St.  John's  intention  to  say  not  merely  that 
Judas  "  bare,"  but  that  he  "  bare  away"  purloined, 
or  pilfered,  what  was  put  into  the  common  purse.  It 
has  the  appearance  of  a  tautology  to  say  that  he  "  had 
the  bag,  and  bare  what  was  put  therein;"  unless, 
indeed,  the  latter  words  are  introduced  to  explain 
the  opportunity  which  he  enjoyed  of  playing  the  thief ; 
hardly,  as  it  appears  to  me,  a  sufficient  explanation. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  use  of  /3a<jva£siv,  not  in  the 
sense  of  '  portare,'  but  of  4  auferre,'  is  frequent ;  it  is 
so  used  by  Josephus,  Antt.^  xiv.  7.  1,  and  in  the  New 
Testament,  John  xx.  15  ;  and  such,  I  am  persuaded,  is 


138  ON    SOME   QUESTIONABLE 

the  use  of  it  here.  We  note  that  already  in  Augus 
tine's  time  the  question  had  arisen  which  was  the  right 
way  to  deal  with  the  words ;  for,  commenting  on  the 
4  portabat'  which  he  found  in  his  Italic,  as  it  has  kept 
its  place  in  the  Vulgate,  he  asks  :  "  Portabat  an  ex- 
portabat  ?  Sed  ministerio  portabat,  furto  exportabat." 
Here  he  might  seem  to  leave  his  own  view  of  the  pas 
sage  undecided;  not  so,  however,  at  Ep.,  108.  3: 
"  Ipsi  [Apostoli]  de  illo  scripserunt  quod  fur  erat,  et 
omnia  qua3  mittebantur  de  dominicis  loculis  aufere- 
bat"  After  all  is  said,  there  will  probably  always 
remain  upholders  of  one  translation  and  upholders  of 
the  other ;  yet  to  my  mind  the  probabilities  are  much 
in  favor  of  that  version  which  I  observe  that  the 
"  Five  Clergymen"  have  also  adopted. 

Rom.  i.  26,  27. —  I  speak  with  hesitation,  yet  in 
cline  strongly  to  think  that  in  this  awful  passage 
where  St.  Paul  dares  to  touch  on  two  of  the  worst 
enormities  of  the  heathen  world,  and  with  purest  lips 
to  speak,  and  that  with  all  necessary  plainness,  of  the 
impurest  things,  we  should  have  done  well,  if  we  had 
followed  even  to  the  utmost  where  he  would  lead 
us.  For  '  men'  and  '  women,'  as  often  as  the  words 
occur  in  these  verses,  I  should  wish  to  see  substituted 
4  males'  and  '  females ;'  &£<iwss  and  fl^Xgiai  are  through 
out  the  words  which  St.  Paul  employs.  It  is  true 
that  something  must  be  indulged  to  the  delicacy  of 
modern  Christian  ears  ;  our  Translators  have  evidently 
so  considered  in  rendering  more  than  one  passage  in 


RENDERINGS   OF   WORDS.  139 

the  Old  Testament ;  but,  reading  these  verses  over 
with  this  substitution,  while  they  gain  in  emphasis, 
while  they  represent  more  exactly  the  terrible  charge 
which  St.  Paul  brings  against  the  cultivated  world 
of  heathendom,  they  do  not  seem  to  me  to  acquire 
any  such  painful  explicitness  as  they  ought  not 
to  have,  hardly  more  of  this  than  they  possessed 
before. 

2  Cor.  ii.  14. — "Now  thanks  be  unto  God  which 
always  causeth  us  to  triumph  in  Christ."  Here,  too, 
our  Translators  may  be  right,  and,  if  they  are  wrong, 
it  is  in  good  company.  I  must  needs  think  that  for 
"  causeth  us  to  triumph"  we  should  read,  "  leadeth 
us  in  triumph ;"  and  that  the  Yulgate,  when  it  ren 
dered  Qpa^fisCuv  fyas,  "  qui  triumphat  nos,"  and  Jerome 
(which  is  the  same  thing),  "  qui  triumphat  de  nobis," 
though  even  he  has  failed  to  bring  out  his  meaning 
with  clearness,  were  right.  ©pja^/3sJsjv  occurs  but  on 
one  other  occasion  in  the  New  Testament  (Col.  ii.  5). 
No  one  there  doubts  that  it  means,  to  lead  in  triumph, 
to  make  a  show  of,  as  vanquished  and  subdued ;  and 
it  is  hard  to  withdraw  this  meaning  from  it  here,  being 
as  it  also  is  the  only  meaning  of  the  word  in  classical 
Greek;  thus  Plutarch,  T/ies.  et  Rom.,iv.:  fiatffceTs 
sfyjafji/Ssurfs  xcu  yjygfxo'vas :  he  led  kings  and  captains  in 
triumph  ;  and  see  other  examples  in  Wetstein.  But, 
it  may  be  asked,  what  will  St.  Paul  mean  by  the  dec 
laration,  "  who  everywhere  leadeth  us  in  triumph  in 
Christ"  ?  The  meaning  is,  indeed,  a  very  grand  one. 


140  ON   SOME   QUESTIONABLE 

St.  Paul  did  not  feel  it  inconsistent  with  the  pro- 
foundest  humility,  to  regard  himself  as  a  signal  trophy 
and  token  of  God's  victorious  power  in  Christ.  Lying 
with  his  face  upon  the  ground,  he  had  anticipated, 
though  in  another  sense,  the  words  of  another  fighter 
against  God,  "  Yicisti,  Galilsee ;"  and  now  his  Al 
mighty  Conqueror  was  leading  him  about  through  all 
the  cities  of  the  Greek  and  Roman  world,  an  illustri 
ous  testimony  of  his  power  at  once  to  subdue  and  to 
save.  The  foe  of  Christ  was  now,  as  he  gloried  in 
naming  himself,  the  servant  of  Christ ;  and  this,  his 
mighty  transformation,  God  was  making  manifest  to 
the  glory  of  his  name  in  every  place.  The  attempt 
of  some  to  combine  the  meanings  of  being  led  in  tri 
umph,  which  they  feel  that  the  word  demands,  and 
triumphing  or  being  made  to  triumph,  which  it  seems 
to  them  the  sense  demands,  is  in  my  judgment  an  at 
tempt  to  reconcile  irreconcileable  images ;  as,  for 
instance,  when  Stanley  says,  "  The  sense  of  conquest 
and  degradation  is  lost  in  the  more  general  sense  of 
'  making  us  to  share  this  triumph.' '  But  in  the  lit 
eral  triumph  who  so  pitiable,  so  abject,  so  forlorn,  as 
the  captive  chief*or  king,  the  Jugurtha  or  Vercingeto- 
rix,  doomed  often,  as  soon  as  he  had  graced  the  show, 
to  a  speedy  and  miserable  death  ?  But  it  is  not  with 
God  as  with  man  :  for  while  to  be  led  in  triumph  of 
men  is  the  most  miserable,  to  be  led  in  triumph  of 
God  as  the  willing  trophy  of  his  power,  is  the  most 
glorious  and  blessed  lot  which  could  fall  to  any ;  and 


RENDERINGS   OF   WORDS.  141 

it  is  this,  I  am  persuaded,  which  the  Apostle  claims 
for  his  own. 

2  Cor.  ii.  IT. — "For  we  are  not  as  many,  which 
corrupt  the  Word  of  God."  Doubtless  there  is  much 
to  be  said  in  favor  of  this  version  of  xa*>]Xso'ovT^  TOV 
Xoyov  TOU  esou.  KatfijXs.'siv  is  often  to  adulterate;  vodtu- 
nv,  as  Chrysostorn  expounds  it,  to  mingle  false  with 
true,  as  the  xcLirn\o$,  or  petty  huckster,  would  frequently 
do.  Still,  the  matter  is  by  no  means  so  clear  in  favor 
of  this  meaning  of  xcMr>]Xgi5gjv,  and  against  the  other, 
"  to  make  a  traffic  of,"  as  some  in  later  times  would 
have  it ;  and  the  words  e%  siXixpivsfas,  which  Meyer  con 
ceives  decisive,  seems  to  me  rather  an  argument  the 
other  way.  What  so  natural  as  that  St.  Paul  should 
put  back  the  charge  of  making  a  traffic  with  the  Word 
of  God  ;  above  all,  seeing  how  earnestly  elsewhere  in 
this  Epistle  he  clears  himself  from  similar  charges 
(xii.  14,  17)  ?  I  believe  when  Tyndale  rendered 
xa-rrjXs.'sjv  here,  "  to  chop  and  change  with,"  he  was 
on  the  right  track ;  and  many  will  remember  the  re 
markable  passage  in  Bentley's  Sermon  upon  Popery, 
which  is  so  strong  in  this  view,  that,  long  as  it  is,  I 
can  not  forbear  to  quote  it :  "  Our  English  Transla 
tors  have  not  been  very  happy  in  their  version  of  this 
passage.  We  are  not,  says  the  Apostle,  xa^XsJovrgs 
rov  Xo'/ov  rou  ©sou,  which  our  Translators  have  rendered, 
*  We  do  not  corrupt'  or  (as  in  the  margin)  deal  de 
ceitfully  with  '  the  Word  of  God.'  They  were  led  to 
this  by  the  parallel  place,  c.  iv.  of  this  Epistle,  ver.  2, 


142  ON    SOME   QUESTIONABLE 

6  not  walking  in  craftiness,'  wtis  $o\avvr££  TOV  Xoyov  TOU 
©sou,  '  nor  handling  the  word  of  God  deceitfully ;' 
they  took  wxifrfalwres  and  foXovvrsf  in  the  same  ade 
quate  notion,  as  the  vulgar  Latin  had  done  before 
them,  which  expresses  both  by  the  same  word,  adul- 
terantes  verbum  Dei ;  and  so,  likewise,  Hesychius 
makes  them  synonyms,  IxxoMnfXffunv,  floXouv.  AoXouv,  in 
deed,  is  fitly  rendered  adulterare  ;  so  <5oXoGv  TOV  ^putfov, 
TOV  oi'vov,  to  adulterate  gold  or  wine,  by  mixing  worse 
ingredients  with  the  metal  or  liquor.  And  our  Trans 
lators  had  done  well  if  they  had  rendered  the  latter 
passage,  not  adulterating,  not  sophisticating  the  Word. 
But  xa«"»jXsuovfl-6£  in  our  text  has  a  complex  idea  and  a 
wider  signification  ;  xa-r/jX^siv  always  comprehends 
c>oXouv ;  but  £oX0i7v  never  extends  to  xa^X^'sjv,  which, 
besides  the  sense  of  adulterating,  has  an  additional 
notion  of  unjust  lucre,  gain,  profit,  advantage.  This 
is  plain  from  the  word  xa^Xr^,  a  calling  always  infa 
mous  for  avarice  and  knavery :  '  perfidus  hie  caupo,' 
says  the  poet,  as  a  general  character.  Thence  xa^- 
Xsusiv,  by  an  easy  and  natural  metaphor,  was  diverted 
to  other  expressions  where  cheating  and  lucre  were 
signified :  xa-r/jXsuejv  rov  X6yov,  says  the  Apostle  here, 
and  the  ancient  Greeks,  xa^XsJeiv  <ra.$  J/xacr,  T/^V  s/p^vrjv, 
*w  tfo<piav,  TO,  f*a^fxara,  to  corrupt  and  sell  justice,  to 
barter  a  negotiation  of  peace,  to  prostitute  learning 
and  philosophy  for  gain.  Cheating,  we  see,  and  adul 
terating,  is  part  of  the  notion  of  xa^XsJeiv,  but  the 
principal  essential  of  it  is  sordid  lucre.  So  cauponari 


RENDERINGS    OF   WORDS.  143 

in  the  famous  passage  of  Ennius,  where  Pyrrhus  re 
fuses  the  offer  of  a  ransom  for  his  captives,  and  restores 
them  gratis : — 

'  Non  mi  aurum  posco,  nee  mi  pretium  dederitis, 
Non  cauponanti  bellum,  sed  belligeranti.' 

And  so  the  Fathers  expound  this  place.  ...  So  that, 
in  short,  what  St.  Paul  says,  xa^Xg.'ovrgs  TOV  Xoyov, 
might  be  expressed  in  one  classic  word — X^^wropw, 
or  Xo/o^Jw-ai,  where  the  idea  of  gain  and  profit  is  the 
chief  part  of  the  signification.  Wherefore,  to  do  jus 
tice  to  our  text,  we  must  not  stop  lamely  with  our 
Translators,  '  corrupters  of  the  word  of  God ;'  but 
add  to  it  as  its  plenary  notion,  i  corrupters  of  the 
word  of  God  for  filthy  lucre.'  "* 

Col.  ii.  8. —  "  Beware  lest  any  man  spoil  you  through 
philosophy  and  vain  deceit/'  This  translation  may 
very  well  hold  its  place :  rfuXayw^siv  does  mean  to  rob 
or  spoil :  this,  however,  is  its  secondary  meaning  ;  its 
first,  and  that  which  agrees  with  its  etymology  (tfiJXov 
and  ayw),  would  be,  to  lead  away  the  spoil,  "  prsedam 
abigere ;"  and  certainly  the  warning  would  be  more 
emphatic  if  we  understood  it  as  a  warning  lest  they 
themselves  should  become  the  spoil  or  booty  of  these 
false  teachers :  "  Beware  lest  any  man  make  a  booty 
of  you,  lead  you  away  as  his  spoil,  through  philosophy 
and  vain  deceit."  Bengel :  "  tfuXa/w/wv,  qui  non  so- 
luin  de  vobiSj  sed  vos  ipsos  spolium  faciat." 

Col.  ii.  23.  —  "Which  things  have  indeed  a  shew 

Work's,  vol.  iii.,  p.  242. 


144  ON   SOME   QUESTIONABLE 

of  wisdom  in  will-worship,  and  humility,  and  neglect 
ing  of  the  body,  not  in  any  honor  to  the  satisfying' 
of  the  flesh"  The  first  part  of  this  verse,  itself  not 
very  easy,  appears  to  me  to  be  excellently  rendered 
in  our  Version.  Perhaps,  if  the  thing  were  to  do 
over  again,  instead  of  "  a  she w  of  wisdom,"  "  a  repib- 
tation  of  wisdom"  would  more  exactly  express  Xo'/ov 
<fo$ias :  and  there  may  be  a  question  whether  '  neglect 
ing'  is  quite  strong  enough  for  acedia;  whether  *  pun 
ishing'  or  '  not  sparing,'  which  are  both  suggested  in 
the  margin,  would  not  either  of  them  have  been  well 
introduced  into  the  text.  But  in  the  latter  part  of 
the  verse,  where  its  chief  difficulties  reside,  our  Trans 
lators  leave  us  in  a  certain  doubt  as  to  what  their 
exact  view  of  the  passage  was.  About  the  Geneva 
Version  I  have  no  doubt.  Its  authors,  evidently  un 
der  the  leading  of  Beza,  have  seized  the  right  mean 
ing  :  "  [Yet]  are  of  no  value,  [but  appertain  to  those 
things]  wherewith  the  flesh  is  crammed."  At  the 
same  time,  their  version  is  too  paraphrastic ;  the 
words  which  I  have  enclosed  within  brackets  having 
no  corresponding  words  in  the  original.  Did  our 
Translators  mean  the  same  thing  ?  I  am  inclined  to 
think  not ;  else  they  would  have  placed  a  comma  after 
4  honor  ;'  but  that  rather  they,  in  agreement  with  many 
of  the  best  Interpreters  of  their  time,  understood  the 
verse  thus :  "  Which  things  have  a  shew  of  wisdom, 
&c.,  but  are  not  in  any  true  honor,  as  things  serving 
to  the  satisfying  of  the  just  needs  of  the  body." 


RENDERINGS   OF   WORDS.  145 


Against  this  it  may  be  urged  that  •g\rt^\rl  has  a  con 
stant  sense  of  filling  overmuch,  of  stuffing  (Isai.  i.  14  ; 
Ps.  cv.  16  ;  Ezek.  xvi.  48)  ;  and  followed  by  tfapxoV 
could  scarcely  have  any  other  sense  ;  it  being  impos 
sible  that  <roLg£  here  can  be  used  in  an  honorable  inten 
tion  as  equivalent  to  tfoj/jia,  but  only  in  the  constant 
Pauline  sense  of  the  flesh  and  mind  of  the  flesh.  Some 
rendering  which  should  express  what  the  Geneva  Ver 
sion  expresses,  but  in  happier  and  conciser  terms,  is, 
I  believe,  here  to  be  desired.  "A  golden  sentence," 
as  he  calls  it,  which  Bengel  quotes  from  the  Commen 
tary  of  Hilary  the  Deacon  on  this  passage,  "  Sagina 
carnalis  sensus  traditio  humana  est,"  shows  that  this 
interpretation  of  it  was  not  unknown  in  antiquity. 

1  Tim.  vi.  8.  —  "Having  food  and  raiment,  let  us 
be  therewith  content."  Would  it  not  be  better  to 
translate,  "  Having  food  and  covering,  let  us  be  there 
with  content"  ?  It  is  possible  that  St.  Paul  had  only 
raiment  in  his  eye  ;  and  <rxsVa<j>a  is  sometimes  used 
in  this  more  limited  sense  (Plato,  Polit.,  279  d)  ;  but 
seeing  that  it  may  very  well  include,  and  does  very 
often  include,  habitation,  this  more  general  word, 
which  it  would  have  been  still  free  for  those  who 
liked  to  understand  as  '  raiment'  alone,  appears  to 
me  preferable.  The  Vulgate,  which  translates,  "  Ha- 
lientes  alimenta  et  quibus  tegamur"  and  De  Wette, 
'  Bedeckung,'  give  the  same  extent  to  the  word. 

Jam.  iii.  5.  —  "  Behold  how  great  a  matter  a  little 
fire  kindleth  !"  This  may  be  right.  Our  Translators 
7 


146  ON    SOME   QUESTIONABLE 

have  the  high  authority  of  St.  Jerome  on  their  side, 
who  renders  (in  Esai.,  66)  :  "  Parvus  ignis  quam 
grandem  succendit  m&teriam;"  and  compare  Ecclus. 
xxviii.  10  ;  yet  certainly  it  is  much  more  in  the  spirit 
and  temper  of  this  grand  imaginative  passage  to  take 
uXrjv  here  as  '  wood'  or  '  forest :'  "  Behold  how  great 
a  forest  a  little  spark  kindleth !"  So  the  Vulgate 
long  ago  :  "  Ecce  quantus  ignis  quam  magnam  silvam 
incendit !"  and  De  Wette :  "  Siehe,  ein  kleines  Feuer, 
welch  einen  grossen  Wald  ziindet  es  an !"  It  need 
hardly  be  observed  how  frequently  in  ancient  classi 
cal  poetry  the  image  of  the  little  spark  setting  the 
great  forest  in  a  blaze  recurs — in  Homer,  21.,  xi.  155  ; 
in  Pindar,  Pyth.,  iii.  66,  and  elsewhere  ;  nor  yet  how 
much  better  this  of  the  wrapping  of  some  vast  forest 
in  a  flame  by  the  falling  of  a  single  spark  sets  out 
that  which  was  in  St.  James's  mind,  namely,  of  a  far- 
spreading  mischief  springing  from  a  smallest  cause, 
than  does  the  vague  sense  which  in  our  Version  is 
attached  to  the  word.  Our  Translators  have  placed 
4  wood'  in  the  margin. 

Rev.  iii.  2. — "  Strengthen  the  things  which  remain, 
that  are  ready  to  die."  The  better  Commentators  are 
now  pretty  well  agreed  that  ^a  Xo^a,  thus  rendered 
"  the  things  which  remain,"  should  be  taken  rather 
as  =  TOU£  Xoiirojs,  and  that  the  Angel  of  the  Sardian 
Church  is  not  bidden,  as  we  generally  understand  it, 
to  strengthen  the  graces  that  remain  in  his  own  heart, 
but  the  few  and  feeble  believers  that  remain  in  the 


RENDERINGS   OF   WORDS.  147 

Church  over  which  he  presides ;  the  allusion  being 
probably  to  Ezek.  xxxiv.  2.  Yitringa :  "  Commendat 
vigilantiam,  qua  sibi  a  morte  caverent,  et  alios  ab 
interitu  imminente  vindicarent."  The  use  of  the  neu 
ter,  singular  and  plural,  where  not  things  but  persons 
are  intended,  is  too  frequent  in  the  New  Testament,  to 
cause  any  difficulty  here  (Winer,  Gramm.,  §  27,4). 


148  ON   SOME   WORDS 


CHAPTER   IX. 

ON  SOME  WORDS  WHOLLY  OR  PARTIALLY  MISTRANSLATED. 

OUR  Translators  occasionally  fail  in  part  or  alto 
gether  to  give  the  true  force  of  a  word  or  phrase.  In 
some  cases  it  is  evident  they  have  assumed  a  wrong 
etymology.  These  are  examples  : — 

Matt.  viii.  20. —  "  The  birds  of  the  air  have  nests.19 
It  stood  thus  in  the  versions  preceding ;  the  Vulgate 
in  like  manner  has  '  nidos  ;'  some  of  the  earlier  Latin 
versions,  however,  instead  of '  nidos'  had  '  diversoria,' 
and  Augustine,  using  one  of  these,  has  '  tabernacula,'* 
and  these,  with  their  equivalent  English,  are  on  all 
accounts  the  preferable  renderings.  For,  in  the  first 
place,  birds  do  not  retire  to  their  '  nests,'  except  at 
one  brief  period  of  the  year;  and  then,  secondly, 
xa<ra(rxT]vwo'£i£  will  not  bear  that  meaning;  or  at  all 
events  has  so  much  naturally  the  more  general  mean 
ing  of  shelters,  habitations  ('  Wohnungen,'  De  Wette), 
that  one  must  needs  agree  with  Grotius,  who  here 

*  Qucest.  xvii.  in  Matt.,  qu,  5. 


WHOLLY    OR   PARTIALLY   MISTRANSLATED.         149 

remarks :  "  Quin  vox  haec  ad  arborum  ramos  perti- 
neat,  dubitaturum  non  puto  qui  loca  infra,  xiii.  32, 
Marc.  iv.  32,  et  Luc.  xiii.  19,  inspexerit."  He  might 
have  added  to  these,  Ps.  civ.  12 :  Dan.  iv.  18,  LXX. 
Matt.  x.  4  ;  cf.  Mark  iii.  18. — "  Simon  the  Canaan- 
tie"  I  have  often  asked  myself  in  perplexity  what 
our  Translators  meant  by  this  <  Canaanite ;'  which 
they  are  the  first  to  use  ;  although  Cranmer's  "  Simon 
of  Canaan"  and  probably  Tyndale's  "  Simon  of  Ca- 
nan"  come  to  the  same  thing.  Take  *  Canaanite'  in 
its  obvious  sense,  and  in  that  which  everywhere  else 
in  the  Scripture  it  possesses  (Gen.  xii.  6  ;  Exod.  xxv. 
28;  Zech.  xiv.  21,  and  continually),  and  the  word 
would  imply  that  one  of  the  Twelve,  of  those  that 
should  sit  on  the  twelve  thrones  judging  the  tribes  of 
Israel,  was  himself  not  of  the  seed  of  Abraham,  but 
of  that  accursed  stock  which  the  children  of  Israel, 
going  back  from  God's  commandment,  had  failed  ut 
terly  to  extirpate  on  their  entrance  into  the  Promised 
Land  ;  and  which,  having  thus  been  permitted  to  live, 
had  gradually  been  absorbed  into  the  nation.  This, 
of  course,  could  not  be ;  to  say  nothing  of  the  word 
in  the  original  being  KavavjV^,  and  not  Xavavaibs,  as 
would  have  been  necessary  to  justify  the  rendering  of 
the  Authorized  Version.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that 
KavaviVris  here  is  =  £?jXwrfo,  Luke  vi.  15  ;  Acts  i.  13 ; 
and  expresses  the  fact  that  Simon  had  been,  before 
he  joined  himself  to  the  Lord,  one  of  those  stormy 
zealots  who,  professing  to  follow  the  example  of  Phin- 


150  ON   SOME   WORDS 

eas  (Num.  xxv.  9),  took  the  vindication  of  God's  out 
raged  law  into  their  own  hands.  There  is,  indeed, 
another  explanation  sometimes  given  of  the  word ; 
but  the  manner  in  which  our  Translators  have  spelt 
4  Canaanite'  will  hardly  allow  one  to  suppose  that  by 
it  they  meant,  "  of  Cana,"  the  village  in  Galilee. 
This  is  Jerome's  view,  and  I  suppose  Beza's  ('  Ca- 
naanites'),  and  De  Wette's  (' Der  Kananit')  ;  yet 
Kava  would  Surely  yield,  not  KavaviV^,  but  Kav»Vij$,  as 
"A/3<fypa,  'Aft&visgiriris.  I  confess  myself  wholly  at  a  loss 
to  understand  the  intention  of  our  Translators.  The 
same  difficulty  attends  the  "  Simon  Chananceus"  of 
the  Vulgate. 

Matt.  xiv.  8.  —  "And  she,  being  before  instructed 
of  her  mother,  said,  Give  me  here  John  Baptist's  head 
in  a  charger."  A  meaning  is  given  here  to  7rpo/3i/3a- 
(ffefta.  which  the  word  will  not  bear.  I  do  not  think 
that  the  Yulgate  exercised  much  influence  on  our 
Translators  ;  yet  the  '  pra3monita'  of  it  may  have  led 
the  way  to  this  error.  Ilgopifia%ew  is  to  urge  on,  or 
push  forward,  to  make  to  advance,  or  sometimes,  in 
transitively,  to  advance ;  the  wpo  not  being  of  time, 
but  of  place ;  thus,  flrpo,@»/@a£siv  <ngv  Tra-rpMa,  to  set  for 
ward  the  might  of  one's  country  (Polyb.,  ix.  10,  4)  ; 
and  it  is  sometimes  used  literally,  sometimes  figura 
tively.  On  the  one  other  occasion  when  it  occurs  in 
the  New  Testament,  it  is  used  literally ;  ^pos^/^atfav 
'AXe£avJpov  (Acts  xix.  33),  "they  pushed  forward," 
not,  "  they  drew  out,  Alexander  ;"  here  figuratively 


WHOLLY    OR   PARTIALLY    MISTRANSLATED.         151 

and  morally.  We  may  conceive  the  unhappy  girl 
with  all  her  vanity  and  levity,  yet  shrinking  from  the 
petition  of  blood,  which  her  mother  would  put  into 
her  lips,  and  needing  to  be  urged  on,  or  pushed  for 
ward,  before  she  could  be  induced  to  make  it ;  and 
this- is  implied  in  the  word.  I  should  translate,  "  And 
she,  being-  urged  on  by  her  mother." 

Matt.  xiv.  13. — "They  followed  Him  on  foot  out 
of  the  cities."  m£»j  might  very  well  mean  "  on  foot ;" 
yet  it  does  not  mean  so  here ;  but  rather,  "  by  land." 
There  could  be  no  question  that  the  multitude  who  fol 
lowed  Jesus  would  in  the  main  proceed  "  on  foot,"  and 
not  in  chariots  or  on  horses,  and  it  is  not  this  which 
the  Evangelist  desires  to  state.  The  contrast  which 
he  would  draw  is  between  the  Lord  who  reached  the 
desert  place  by  ship  (see  the  earlier  part  of  the  verse), 
and  the  multitude  who  found  their  way  thither  by 
land.  Compare  the  use  of  irs^guejv  at  Acts  xx.  13,  by 
the  Rheims  rightly  translated,  "  to  journey  by  land  ;" 
but  in  our  Translation,  not  with  the  same  precision, 
"  to  go  afoot." 

Mark  xi.  4.  —  "A  place  where  two  ways  met." 
"Af*<po&>£  (d/jupi  and  e&fc)  is  rather,  a  way  round,  a 
crooked  lane. 

Mark  xii.  26.  —  "Have  ye  not  read  in  the  book  of 
Moses,  how  in  the  bush  God  spake  unto  him  ?"  But 
fat  TTJS  /3<xTou,  as  all  acknowledge  now,  is  not,  "  in  the 
bush,"  as  indicating  the  place  from  which  God  spake 
to  Moses,  but  means,  "  in  that  portion  of  Scripture 


152  ON   SOME   WORDS 

which  goes  by  the  name  of  The  Bush"  —  the  Jews 
being  wont  to  designate  different  portions  of  Scripture 
by  the  most  memorable  thing  or  fact  recorded  in  them  ; 
thus,  one  portion  was  called  y  (3 foot;.  How,  indeed, 
to  tell  this  story  in  the  English  Version  is  not  easy  to 
determine,  without  forsaking  the  translator's  sphere, 
and  entering  on  that  of  the  commentator.  I  may  ob 
serve  that  sv  TTXia  (Rom.  xi.  2)  is  a  quotation  of  the 
same  kind.  It  can  never  mean,  "  of  Elias,"  as  in  our 
Translation  ;  but  is  rather,  "  in  the  history  of  Elias," 
in  that  portion  of  Scripture  which  tells  of  him  ;  so  De 
Wette  :  "  in  der  Geschichte  des  Elia." 

Acts  xiv.  13.  —  "  We  also  are  men  of  like  passions 
with  you."  This  fact  would  not  have  disproved  in 
the  eyes  of  these  Lycaonians  the  right  of  Paul  and 
Silas  to  be  considered  gods.  The  heathen  were  only 
too  ready  to  ascribe  to  their  gods  like  passions,  re 
venge,  lust,  envy,  with  their  own.  'O^aota&sTc;  i-^Tv 
means  rather,  "  subject  to  like  conditions,"  that  is,  of 
pain,  sickness,  old  age,  death,  "with  yourselves." 
Translate,  "  We  also  are  men  who  suffer  like  things 
with  yourselves."  The  Vulgate,  "  Et  nos  mortales 
sumus,"  is  on  the  right  track ;  and  Tyndale,  "  We 
are  mortal  men  like  unto  you."  The  only  other  pas 
sage  in  the  New  Testament  in  which  o^oio^rad^  occurs 
(Jam.  v.  17),  will  need  to  be  slightly  modified  in  the 
same  sense. 

Acts  xvii.  22. —  "I  perceive  that  in  all  things  ye 
are  too  superstitious"  This,  as  Luther's  "  allzu  aber- 


WHOLLY   OR   PARTIALLY   MISTRANSLATED.        153 

glaiibisch,"  is  a  rendering  very  much  to  be  regretted. 
Whatever  severe  things  St.  Paul  might  be  obliged  to 
say  to  his  hearers,  yet  it  was  not  his  way  to  begin  by 
insulting,  and  in  this  way  alienating  them  from  him 
self,  and  from  the  truth  of  which  he  was  •  the  bearer. 
Rather,  if  there  was  anything  in  them  which  he  could 
praise,  he  would  praise  that,  and  only  afterward  con 
demn  that  which  demanded  condemnation.  So  is  it 
here  ;  he  affirmed,  and  no  doubt  they  took  it  for  praise, 
that  by  his  own  observation  he  had  gathered  they 
were  us  fort&upaffrfrtfttwr,  as  men  greatly  addicted  to 
the  worship  of  deities,  "  very  religious,"  I  should 
render  it,  giving  to  i  religious'  its  true  sense,  and  not 
the  mischievous  sense  which  it  has  now  acquired.  So 
Beza,  '  religiosiores ;'  and  De  Wette,  "  sehr  gottes- 
fiirchtig."  This  was  the  praise  which  all  antiquity 
gave  to  the  Athenians,  and  which  Paul  does  not  with 
hold,  using  at  the  same  time  with  the  finest  tact  and 
skill  a  middle  word,  capable  of  a  good  sense,  and 
capable  of  a  bad  —  a  word  originally  of  honorable 
meaning,  but  which  had  already  slipped  in  part  into 
a  dishonorable  sense  ;  thus  finely  insinuating  that  this 
service  of  theifs  might  easily  slip,  or  have  slipped 
already,  into  excess,  or  might  be  rendered  to  wrong 
objects.  Still,  these  words  are  to  be  taken,  not  as  a 
holding  up  to  them  of  their  sin,  but  as  a  captatio  be- 
nevolentice,  and  it  must  be  confessed  they  are  coarsely 
rendered  in  our  Version. 

Acts  xxv.  5.  —  "  Let  them  therefore,  said  he,  which 

r 


154  ON   SOME   WORDS. 

among  you  are  able,  go  down."  But  oi  5uva<roi  is  not 
"  those  which  are  able,"  but  "  those  which  are  in  au 
thority,"  as  the  Vulgate  rightly,  "  qui  potentes  sunt :" 
see  Losner,  Obss.  in  N.  T.,  in  loc. 

Rom.  ii.  22. —  "Thou  that  abhorrest  idols,  dost 
thou  commit  sacrilege  ?"  This  is  too  general,  and 
fails  to  bring  out  with  sufficient  distinctness  the  charge 
which  the  Apostle,  in  this  lepotfuXsr^,  is  making  against 
the  Jew.  The  charge  is  this :  "  Thou  professest  to 
abhor  idols,  and  yet  art  so  mastered  by  thy  covetous- 
ness,  that,  if  opportunity  offers,  thou  wilt  not  scruple 
thyself  to  lay  hands  on  these  gold  and  silver  abomi 
nations,  and  to  make  them  thy  own"  (see  Chrysostom, 
in  loco).  Read,  "  Thou  that  abhorrest  idols,  dost 
thou  rob  temples  ?" 

Rom.  xi.  8.  —  "According  as  it  is  written,  God 
hath  given  them  the  spirit  of  slumber"  Our  Trans 
lators  must  have  derived  xarawfc  from  vurfTa^siv,  as 
indeed  many  others  have  done,  before  they  could  have 
given  it  this  meaning.  Yet  they  plainly  have  their 
misgiving  in  respect  of  the  correctness  of  this  etymol 
ogy,  for  they  propose  '  remorse'  in  the  margin,  evi 
dently  on  the  correcter  hypothesis  that  the  word  is 
not  from  vurfra^giv,  but  vjrftfeiv.  Still,  even  if  they  had 
put  '  remorse,'  as  the  compunction  of  the  soul  (the 
Yulgate  has  '  compunctio'),  into  the  text,  though  they 
would  have  been  etymologically  right,  they  would  not 
have  seized  the  exact  force  of  xaravufis,  at  least  in 
Hellenistic  Greek ;  as  is  plain  from  the  service  which 


WHOLLY   OR   PARTIALLY   MISTRANSLATED.         155 

it  does  in  the  Septuagint,  and  from  the  Hebrew  words 
which  it  is  there  made  to  render.  This  is  no  place 
for  entering  at  length  into  all  (and  it  is  much)  which 
has  been  written  on  this  word.  Sufficient  to  say  that 
it  is  properly  the  stupor  or  stupefaction,  the  astonish 
ment,  bringing  '  astonishment'  back  to  its  stronger  and 
earlier  meaning,  the  stunnedness  ('  Betaubung,'  De 
Wette)  consequent  on  a  wound  or  blow,  vjctfsiv,  as  I 
need  hardly  observe,  being  to  strike  as  well  as  to 
pierce.  '  Torpor,'  only  that  this  so  easily  suggests  the 
wrong  etymology,  and  runs  into  the  notion  of  deep 
sleep,  would  not  be  a  bad  rendering  of  it.  '  Stupor,' 
which  the  "  Five  Clergymen"  have  adopted,  is  perhaps 
better.  Hammond,  whose  marginal  emendations  of 
the  Authorized  Version  are  often  exceedingly  valuable, 
and  deserve  more  attention  than  they  have  received, 
being  about  the  most  valuable  part  of  his  book  on  the 
New  Testament,  has  suggested  '  senselessness ;'  but 
this  is  not  one  of  his  happiest  emendations. 

Gal.  i.  18.  —  "  I  went  up  to  Jerusalem  to  see  Peter." 
'icTTopsJv  is  not  merely  '  to  see,'  but  properly,  to  inquire, 
to  investigate,  to  interrogate,  to  arrive  by  personal 
knowledge,  ocular  or  other,  at  the  actual  knowledge 
of  past  events :  and  then,  secondarily,  to  set  down  the 
results  of  these  investigations,  just  as  Icvopia  is,  first, 
this  investigation,  and  then,  in  a  secondary  sense,  the 
result  of  it  duly  set  down,  or,  as  we  say,  '  history.' 
Here,  indeed,  it  is  a  person,  and  not  things,  which 
is  the  object  of  this  closer  knowledge.  "  I  went  up 


156  ON    SOME   WORDS 

to  Jerusalem,"  says  Paul,  "  to  acquaint  myself  with 
Peter"  ("  accuratius  cognoscere ;  itaque  plus  inest 
quam  in  verbo  ideTv :"  Winer). 

Gal.  v.  20. — 4  Seditions.'  It  is  at  first  perplexing 
to  find  this  as  the  rendering  of  A^oa-rao'iai,  which  is 
evidently  a  word  of  wider  reach ;  but  Archdeacon 
Hare  has  admirably  accounted  for  its  appearance  in 
this  place.*  I  will  quote  his  words :  "  When  our 
Version  is  inaccurate  or  inadequate,  this  does  not 
arise,  as  it  does  throughout  in  the  Rhemish  Version, 
from  a  coincidence  with  the  Vulgate ;  yet  its  inade 
quate  rendering's  often  seem  to  have  arisen  from  an 
imperfect  apprehension  of  some  Latin  substitute  for 
the  word  in  the  Greek  text  —  from  taking  some  pecu 
liar  sense  of  the  Latin  word  different  from  that  in 
which  it  was  used  to  represent  the  Greek  original. 
Let  me  illustrate  this  by  a  single  instance.  Among 
the  works  of  the  flesh  St.  Paul  (Gal.  v.  20)  numbers 
&Xoo'<ra<j'jaj,  which  we  render  '  seditions.'  But  '  sedi 
tions'  in  our  old,  as  well  as  our  modern  language,  are 
only  one  form  of  the  divisions  implied  by  (Jixoovatfiaj, 
and  assuredly  not  the  form  which  would  present  itself 
foremost  to  the  Apostle's  mind  when  writing  to  the 
Galatians.  At  first,  too,  one  is  puzzled  to  understand 
how  the  word  '  seditions'  came  to  suggest  itself  in  the 
place,  instead  of  the  more  general  term  '  divisions,' 
which  is  the  plain  correspondent  to  c^ti-aiiai,  and  is 
so  used  in  Rom.  xvi.  17,  and  in  1  Cor.  iii.  3.  Here 

*  Mission  of  the  Comforter,  p.  391. 


WHOLLY   OR   PARTIALLY    MISTRANSLATED.         157 

the  thought  occurs  that  the  Latin  word  *  seditio,' 
though  in  its  ordinary  acceptation  equivalent  to  its 
English  derivative,  yet  primarily  and  etymologically 
answers  very  closely  to  Sr^o^a^la ;  and  one  is  natu 
rally  led  to  conjecture  that  our  Translators  must  have 
followed  some  Latin  version,  in  which  the  word  '  sedi- 
tiones'  was  used,  not  without  an  affectation  of  archaic 
elegance.  Now,  the  Yulgate  has  '  dissensiones,'  but 
in  Erasmus,  whose  style  was  marked  by  that  charac 
teristic,  we  find  the  very  word  '  seditiones.'  Hence 
Tyndale,  whom  we  know,  from  his  controversial  wri 
tings,  to  have  made  use  of  Erasmus'  version,  took  his 
4  sedition,'  not  minding  that  the  sense  in  which  Eras 
mus  had  used  the  Latin  word  was  alien  to  the  Eng 
lish;  and  from  Tyndale  it  has  come  down,  with  a 
mere  change  of  number,  into  our  present  Version ; 
while  Wiclif  and  the  Rhemish  render  the  Vulgate  by 
4  dissensions.' ' 

Ephes.  iv.  29.  —  "Let  no  corrupt  communication 
proceed  out  of  your  mouth,  but  that  which  is  good  to 
the  use  of  edifying"  But  to  justify  these  last  words, 
to  which  Beza's  "  ad  aedificationis  usum"  may  have  led 
the  way,  we  should  have  found,  not  tfpos  o<Wo^r,v  T% 
Xp£»a<r,  but  tf£o£  or  els  xps'iav  r~f&  »&•&$<%«  No  one  will 
affirm  that  we  have  such  an  hypallage  here.  There 
is  much  more  in  the  words  than  such  a  translation, 
even  were  it  allowable,  would  educe  from  them.  It 
is  not  very  easy  to  give,  without  circumlocution,  a 
satisfactory  English  rendering  ;  but  the  meaning  is 


158  ON   SOME   WORDS 

abundantly  clear.  "  Let  such  discourse,"  St.  Paul 
would  say,  "  proceed  from  your  mouths  as  is  fitted  to 
the  present  need  or  occasion ;  do  not  deal  in  vague, 
flat,  unmeaning  generalities,  which  would  suit  a  thou 
sand  other  cases  equally  well,  and  probably,  therefore, 
equally  ill ;  let  your  words  be  what  the  words  of  wise 
men  will  always  be,  nails  fastened  in  a  sure  place, 
words  suiting  the  present  time  and  the  present  per 
son,  being  for  the  edifying  of  the  occasion."  "  Edi 
fication  of  the  need,"  Ellicott  has  it ;  and  De  Wette, 
"  zur  Erbauung  nach  Bediirfniss."  An  admonition  of 
a  similar  character  is  couched  in  the  slSevai  vug  5sT  hi 
kxatfry  cwroxpi'vgrfdai  of  the  parallel  passage  in  the  Co- 
lossians  (iv.  6).  Each  man  must  have  his  own  an 
swer,  that  which  meets  his  difficulties,  his  perplexities. 
There  must  not  be  one  unfeeling,  unsympathizing  an 
swer  for  all. 

Col.  i.  15.  —  "Who  is  the  image  of  the  invisible 
God,  the  first-born  of  every  creature.'91  This  is  one 
of  the  very  few  renderings  in  our  Version,  I  know  not 
whether  the  only  one,  which  obscures  a  great  doctri 
nal  truth,  and,  indeed,  worse  than  this,  seems  to  play 
into  the  hands  of  Arian  error.  For  does  it  not  legiti 
mately  follow  on  this  "  first-born  of  every  creature," 
or  "  of  all  creation,"  that  He  of  whom  this  is  predi 
cated  must  be  Himself  also  a  creature,  although  the 
first  in  the  creation  of  God  ?  But  in  the  phrase 
acx  xn'rfswf,  we  are  not  to  regard  warf^ 
as  a  partitive  genitive,  so  that  Christ  is  in- 


WHOLLY    OR   PARTIALLY   MISTRANSLATED.         159 

eluded  in  the  "  every  creature,"  though  distinguished 
as  being  the  first-born  among  them,  but  rather  as  a 
genitive  of  comparison,  depending  on,  and  governed 
by,  the  *pwro£  (see  John  i.  15,  30)  which  lies  in 
flrpwToToxo^.  I  am  not  quite  satisfied  with  "  born  be 
fore  every  creature,"  or  "  brought  forth  before  every 
creature ;"  because  there  lies  in  the  original  words 
a  comparison  between  the  begetting  of  the  Son  and 
the  creation  of  the  creature,  and  not  merely  an 
opposition ;  He  is  placed  at  the  head  of  a  series, 
though  essentially  differing  from  all  that  followed,  in 
the  fact  that  He  was  born  and  they  only  created  ;  the 
great  distinction  between  the  yswav  (or  rfxreiv,  as  it  is 
here)  and  the  x<n£s«v,  which  came  so  prominently  for 
ward  in  the  Arian  controversy,  being  here  already 
marked.  Still,  I  could  have  no  question  as  between 
it  and  the  "  first-born  of  every  creature"  of  our  Ver 
sion,  which  obviously  suggests  an  erroneous  meaning, 
though  it  may  be  just  capable  of  receiving  a  right  one. 
It  was  nothing  unnatural  that  Waterland,  who  in  the 
beginning  of  the  last  century  fought  the  great  battle 
of  the  English  Church  against  the  Arianism  which 
claimed  a  right  to  exist  in  the  very  bosom  of  that 
Church,  should  have  been  very  ill-content  to  find  a 
most  important  testimony  to  the  truth  for  which  he 
was  contending,  foregone  and  renounced,  so  far  at 
least  as  the  English  Translation  reached — nay,  more 
than  this,  the  verse  not  merely  taken  away  from  him, 
but,  in  appearance  at  least,  made  over  to  his  adver- 


160  ON   SOME   WORDS 

saries.  In  several  places  he  complains  of  this,  as  in 
the  following  passage :  "  In  respect  of  the  words, 
'  first-born  of  every  creature'  comes  not  up  to  the  force 
or  meaning  of  the  original.  It  should  have  been  "born 
(or  begotten)  before  the  whole  creation,  as  is  mani 
fest  from  the  context,  which  gives  the  reason  why  He 
is  said  to  be  wpwroVoxos  ntiustfe  xriVswf.  It  is  because  He 
is  <  before  all  things,'  and  because  by  Him  were  all 
things  created.  So  that  this  very  passage,  which,  as 
it  stands  in  our  Translation,  may  seem  to  suppose  the 
Son  one  of  the  creatures,  does,  when  rightly  under 
stood,  clearly  exempt  Him  from  the  number  of  crea 
tures.  He  was  before  all  created  being,  and  conse 
quently  was  Himself  uncreated,  existing  with  the 
Father  from  all  eternity."* 

Heb.  xi.  29. — "Which  the  Egyptians  assaying  to 
do,  were  drowned"  Did  our  Translators  prefer  the 
reading  xcw-s*ov*-itf0i)<rav  ?  This  is  not  very  probable, 
the  authority  for  it  being  so  small.  If  they  did  not, 
and  if  they  read,  as  is  most  likely,  xarsiro'dTjfl'av,  they 
should  have  rendered  it  by  some  word  of  wider  reach  ; 
as,  for  instance,  "  were  swallowed  up,"  or  "  were  en 
gulfed"  ("  devorati  sunt,"  Vulgate  ;  "  verschlungen 
wurden,"  Bleek).  "  Swallowed  up,"  besides  being  a 
better  rendering,  would  more  accurately  set  forth  the 
historic  fact.  The  pursuing  armies  of  the  Egyptians 
sunk  in  the  sands  quite  as  much  as  they  were  over 
whelmed  by  the  waves  of  the  Red  Sea,  as  is  expressly 

*  Serm.  2,  Christ's  Divinity  proved  from  Creation. 


WHOLLY   OR   PARTIALLY   MISTRANSLATED.         161 

declared  in  the  hymn  of  triumph  which  Moses  com 
posed  on  the  occasion:  xarfnfv'cturwJf  yr,9  Exod.  xv. 
12  ;  cf.  Diodorus  Siculus,  i.  32 :  vie1  a^ou  xa<ratfjWai. 
Jam.  i.  26. — "If  any  man  among  you  seem  to  be 
religious,  and  bridleth  not  his  tongue,  but  deceiveth 
his  own  heart,  this  man's  religion  is  vain."  This 
verse,  as  it  here  stands,  must,  I  am  persuaded,  have 
perplexed  many.  How  can  a  man  "  seem  to  be  reli 
gious,"  that  is,  present  himself  to  others  as  such, 
when  his  religious  pretensions  are  belied  and  refuted 
by  the  indulgence  in  an  unbridled  tongue  ?  But  the 
perplexity  has  been  introduced  by  our  Translators, 
who  have  here  failed  to  play  the  part  of  accurate 
synonymists,  and  to  draw  the  line  sharply  and  dis 
tinctly  between  the  verbs  SoxsTv  and  <pai'vstfdai.  AoxsTv 
expresses  the  subjective  mental  opinion  of  anything 
which  men  form,  their  fo'f-a  about  it,  which  may  be 
right  (Acts  xv.  28 ;  1  Cor.  iv.  9),  or  which  may  be 
wrong  (Matt.  vi.  7  ;  Mark  vi.  49  ;  Acts  xxvii.  13)  ; 
(paiWdai,  the  objective  external  appearance  which  it 
presents,  quite  independent  of  men's  conception  about 
it.  Thus,  when  Xenophon  writes,  s<pa»Wo  fyvia  iWwv 
(Anab.,  i.  6,  1),  he  would  affirm  that  horses  had 
been  actually  there,  and  left  their  tracks.  Had  he 
employed  the  alternative  word,  it  would  have  implied 
that  Cyrus  and  his  company  took  for  tracks  of  horses 
what  might  have  been,  or  what  also  very  possibly 
might  not  have  been,  such  at  all.  "Aoxslv  cernitur  in 
cppinione,  quse  falsa  esse  potest  et  vana.  Sed  c 


162  ON    SOME    WORDS 

plerumque  est  in  re  extra  mentem ;  quamvis  nemo 
opinatur."  Apply  this  distinction  to  the  passage  be 
fore  us ;  keep  in  mind  that  <W7V,  and  not  yalvsadai,  is 
the  word  used,  and  all  is  plain  :  "  If  any  man  among 
you  think  himself  religious  ("  se  putat  religiosum 
esse,"  Vulgate),  and  bridleth  not  his  tongue/'  &c. 
It  is  his  own  subjective  estimate  of  his  spiritual  con 
dition  which  the  word  implies,  an  estimate  which  the 
following  words  declare  to  be  entirely  erroneous. — 
Let  me  observe  here  that  the  same  rendering  of  SmsTv, 
Gal.  ii.  6,  9,  gives  a  color  to  St.  Paul's  words  which 
they  are  very  far  from  having ;  as  though  there  was 
a  certain  covert  irony  upon  his  part  in  regard  of  the 
pretensions  of  the  three  great  Apostles  whom  he  met 
at  Jerusalem  ("  who  seemed  to  be  something"  —  "  who 
seemed  to  be  pillars")  ;  whereas  he  does  express,  not 
what  they  seemed  or  appeared,  but  what  they  by  oth 
ers  were,  and  were  rightly,  held-  to  be.  The  Geneva 
is  here,  as  so  often,  correct ;  correct  also  in  making 
SQXQWTSS  in  both  these  verses  a  present,  and  not  an 
imperfect,  participle. 

Jude  12. — "Trees  whose  fruit  with  ere  th."  But 
ybvoieupivos  has  here  a  meaning  ascribed  to  it,  which  it 
nowhere  possesses,  as  though  it  were  =  utetfixctpieog, 
the  <p0»vo'xa£flros  of  Pindar  (Pyth.,  iv.  265)  ;  or  the 
'  frugiperdus'  of  Pliny.  The  <pdivoVw£ov  is  the  late  au 
tumn,  the  autumn  far  spent,  which  succeeds  the  o^wpa, 
or  the  autumn  contemplated  as  the  time  of  the  ripened 
fruits  of  the  earth ;  and  whicli  has  its  name,  tf«£a  ro 


WHOLLY   OR   PARTIALLY   MISTRANSLATED.         163 


(pdivetfdcu  rrtv  otfwpav,  from  the  waning  away  of  the  au 
tumn  and  the  autumn  fruits,  themselves  also  often 
called  the  o^wpa  ;  and  <p4ivo*wpivoV  is  always  used  in  the 
sense  of  belonging  to  the  late  autumn.  The  Latin 
language  has  no  word  which  distinguishes  the  later 
autumn  from  the  earlier,  and,  therefore,  the  "  arbores 
autumnales"  of  the  Vulgate  is  a  correct  translation, 
and  one  as  accurate  as  the  language  would  allow, 
unless,  indeed,  it  had  been  rendered  "  arbores  senes- 
centis  autumni"  or  by  some  such  phrase  ;  as  De  Wette 
in  his  German  translation  has  it,  <  spa^herbstliche.' 
We,  I  think,  could  scarcely  get  beyond  "  autumnal 
trees/'  or  "  trees  of  autumn"  as  the  Rheims  version 
gives  it.  These  deceivers  are  likened  by  the  Apostle 
to  trees  as  they  show  in  late  autumn,  when  foliage 
and  fruit  alike  are  gone.  Bengel  :  "  Arbor  tali  spe 
cie  qualis  est  autumno  extreme,  sine  foliis  et  pomis." 
The  <pdiv(wrwpiva,  axaptfa,  will  then,  in  fact,  mutually  com 
plete  one  another  :  "  without  leaves,  without  fruit." 
Tyndale,  who  throws  together  bsvSpa  <p6wrwp*?a  axap<rra, 
and  renders  the  whole  phrase  thus,  "  trees  without 
fruit  at  gathering  time"  was  feeling  after,  though  he 
has  not  grasped,  the  right  translation. 


164          ON  SOME  CHARGES  UNJUSTLY  BROUGHT 


CHAPTER   X. 

ON    SOME    CHARGES    UNJUSTLY    BROUGHT    AGAINST    OUR 
VERSION. 

SOME  charges  have  been,  and  are  still,  not  unfre- 
quently  made  against  our  Version,  which  I  am  per 
suaded  are  unjust.  There  is  one  which  so  nearly 
touches  the  honor  and  good  faith  of  its  authors,  that 
it  can  hardly  be  passed  over.  They  are  accused,  as 
is  familiar  to  many,  with  snatching  at  unfair  advan 
tages,  slurring  over  statements  of  Scripture  which 
seemed  to  make  for  an  adversary,  giving  to  others  a 
turn  which  the  truth  would  not  warrant,  and  compel 
ling  them  to  bear  a  testimony  in  their  own  favor  which 
these  passages  did  not  properly  contain.  They  have 
been  charged  with  this  from  two  quarters.  Thus,  the 
Roman  Catholics  oftentimes  complain  that  they  have 
made  passages  of  Scripture  to  tell  against  Roman 
doctrine,  which,  fairly  translated,  would  yield  no  such 
testimony  against  it ;  while  they  have  weakened  or 
destroyed  the  witness  of  other  passages,  which,  in  a 


AGAINST  OUR  VERSION.  165 

more  honest  version,  would  be  found  on  the  side  of 
Rome,  in  the  points  at  issue  between  her  and  the 
Reformed  Church.  The  charge,  a  most  grave  and 
serious  one  indeed,  of  such  deceitful  handling  of  the 
Word  of  God,  does  not  seem  to  me  to  have  any  foun 
dation  whatever.  It  was,  of  course,  free  to  our  Trans 
lators,  and  only  natural,  that  in  a  passage  like  Heb. 
xiii.  4,  they  should  incline  to  that  interpretation,  and 
adopt  that  rendering,  which  justified  the  abolition  in 
the  Reformed  Church  of  the  compulsory  celibate  of 
the  clergy.  The  rendering  of  sv  tu<fi,  "  in  all,"  that 
is,  "  inter  omnes"  (a  masculine  and  not  a  neuter),  was 
open  to  them ;  it  was  the  interpretation  of  the  words 
adopted  by  many  of  the  ancient  Fathers ;  grammati 
cally,  it  can  be  perfectly  justified ;  it  is  accepted  to 
the  present  day  by  many  who  are  not  in  the  least 
drawn  to  it  by  doctrinal,  but  purely  by  philological 
interests,  and  it  is  very  idle  to  complain  of  them  that 
they  preferred  it. 

It  would  be  quite  impossible  to  go  through  the  sev 
eral  passages  on  which  this  charge  is  grounded  ;  such 
a  course  would  carry  me  too  far  from  the  main  pur 
pose  of  these  pages.  I  may,  however,  just  mention 
one  or  two.  The  first  is  one  where  this  charge  has 
been  sometimes  allowed  by  writers  of  our  own  com 
munion.  Thus,  Professor  Stanley  is  inclined  to  as 
cribe  to  "  theological  fear  or  partiality"  the  render 
ing  of  1  Cor.  xi.  27,  where,  in  St.  Paul's  statement, 
"  Whosoever  shall  eat  this  bread  or  drink  this  cup  of 


166    ON  SOME  CHARGES  UNJUSTLY  BROUGHT 

the  Lord  unworthily,  shall  be  guilty  of  the  body  and 
blood  of  the  Lord,"  they  have  substituted  '  and'  for 
'or.'  I  have  no  suspicion  that  they  did  this  "  in  or 
der  to  avoid  the  inference  that  the  Eucharist  might 
be  received  under  one  kind."  In  the  first  place,  there 
is  authority  for  i  and ;'  I  do  not  think  sufficient  au 
thority,  but  so  much  that  an  eminent  scholar,  like 
Fritzsche,  with  no  theological  leaning  on  one  side  or 
the  other,  even  now  prefers  it.  .  Moreover,  such  an 
inference  from  these  words  is  so  extravagantly  absurd, 
so  refuted  by  several  other  statements  in  this  very 
chapter,  that  I  can  not  see  how  they  should  have 
cared  to  exclude  it ;  even  had  they  been  willing  to 
sacrifice  truth  and  honesty,  they  were  under  no  tempt 
ation  to  do  so.  They  probably  accepted  xaf  as  the 
right  reading. 

Gal.  v.  6.  — "  Faith  which  worketh  by  love."  It 
was  for  a  long  time  a  favorite  charge  of  the  Koman- 
ists,  even  in  the  face  of  their  own  Vulgate,  which  has 
rightly,  "  fides  quae  per  caritatem  operatur"  that  we 
had  given  to  Jvepyou/j^vij  an  active  sense,  when  it  ought 
to  have  a  passive,  and  that  we  had  done  so  in  the  fear 
lest  there  should  be  found  here  any  support  for  their 
doctrine  of  the  "  fides  formata,"  as  that  which  justi 
fies.  They  would  have  had  the  words  translated, 
"  faith  which  is  wrought  on,  that  is,  animated,  stirred 
up,  by  love."  Other  unfriendly  critics  have  repeated 
the  charge.  There  is  no  need,  however,  to  refute  it, 
as  the  later  Roman  Catholic  expositors  —  Windisch- 


AGAINST  OUR  VERSION.  167 

man,  for  instance,  in  his  valuable  Commentary  on  this 
Epistle — have  acknowledged  the  accuracy  of  our 
translation,  have  accepted  it  as  the  true  one ;  and 
thus  implicitly  allowed  the  injustice  of  this  charge. 

Indeed,  it  is  not  too  much  to  say,  that  if,  in  the 
heat  of  earlier  controversy,  any  shadow  of  unfair  ad 
vantage  might  seem  to  have  been  taken  by  the  first 
Protestant  translators  after  the  Reformation,  those  of 
King  James's  Bible  were  careful  to  forego  and  re 
nounce  everything  of  the  kind.  Thus,  it  was  a  com 
plaint,  and,  as  I  must  needs  regard  it,  not  an  unrea 
sonable  one,  on  the  part  of  Romish  assailants  of  our 
earlier  versions,*  that  they  rendered  sWuXov  '  image,' 
and  not  '  idol ;'  and  e/£wXoXarpy]£  "  worshipper  of  im 
ages"  and  not  "  worshipper  of  idols"  or  '  idolater ;' 
that  they  thus  confounded  the  honor  paid  in  the  Ro 
man  Church  to  images  with  the  idol-worship  of  hea 
thenism.  They  urged  that  however  Protestants  might 
reprobate  and  condemn  the  first,  yet  it  was  confes 
sedly  an  entirely  different  thing  from  the  last ;  while 
yet  our  Translators  went  out  of  their  way,  and  de 
parted  from  the  more  natural  rendering  of  si'dwXov,  for 
the  purpose  of  including  both  under  a  common  re 
proach  ;  that  by  such  renderings  as  this, "  How  agreeth 
the  temple  of  God  with  images  ?"  (2  Cor.  vi.  16),  they . 
suggested  and  helped  forward  the  destruction  of  these 
in  all  the  churches  through  the  land.  The  complaint 
was  a  just  one,  and  our  Translators  seem  to  have  so 

*  See  WARD'S  Errata  of  the  Protestant  Bible,  Dublin,  1810,  p.  63. 


168          ON   SOME   CHARGES   UNJUSTLY   BROUGHT 

regarded  it.  They  have  nowhere  employed  the  offen 
sive  rendering,  but  always  used  '  idolater'  and  i  idol.' 
Thus,  compare  1  Cor.  x.  7  ;  1  John  v.  21,  in  our  Ver 
sion,  with  the  same  in  the  earlier  Protestant  versions  ; 
in  the  latter  passage,  indeed,  the  Geneva  had  antici 
pated  this  correction. 

Then,  too,  it  has  been  sometimes  said,  I  was  inclined 
at  one  time  to  think  with  some  reason,  that  other  the 
ological  leanings,  Calvinistic  as  against  Arminian, 
were  occasionally  to  be  traced  in  our  Translation, 
modifying  consciously  or  unconsciously  the  rendering 
of  some  passages  in  it.  These  charges,  I  am  now  per 
suaded,  are  entirely  without  foundation.  They  mainly, 
though  not  exclusively,  rest  on  the  rendering  of  the 
two  following  places :  Acts  ii.  47  :  Heb.  x.  38.  But 
what  in  each  of  these  passages  there  is,  or  what  some 
have  considered  there  is,  to  find  fault  with,  is  capable 
of  much  easier  explanation.  It  may  be  worth  while 
to  consider  these  passages. 

Acts  ii.  47.  —  Our  Translators  make  St.  Luke  to 
say,  "  The  Lord  added  to  the  Church  daily  such  as 
should  be  saved."  It  is  urged  against  them  that  in 
the  original  it  is  not  roue;  ovdrjtfcji/.s'vous,  which  would 
alone  have  justified  this  rendering  ;  but  TOUS  tfwfofwvtus. 
The  explanation,  however,  is  sufficiently  easy  of  their 
slight  departing  from  an  accurate  rendering,  without 
ascribing  to  them,  or  those  who  went  before  them  in 
this  translation,  any  dogmatic  bias.  They  were  per 
plexed  with  a  language  which  spoke  of  those  as  already 


AGAINST   OUR    VERSION.  169 

saved,  who  only  became  saved  through  being  thus 
added  to  the  Church  of  the  living  God.  They  proba 
bly  did  not  clearly  perceive  that  by  this  language 
the  sacred  historian  meant  to  say  that  in  this  act  of 
adherence  to  the  Church,  and  to  Christ  its  Head, 
these  converts  were  saved,  delivered  from  the  wrath 
to  come  ;  "  those  that  did  escape,"  Hammond  renders 
it.  They  had  no  wish,  except  to  avoid  a  fancied  dif 
ficulty  ;  and  I  do  not  believe  that  the  thought  of  pre 
destination  in  the  least  entered  into  their  minds,  how 
ever  others  may  have  since  employed  the  words  as  a 
support  for  the  doctrine.  Indeed,  it  is  well  worthy 
of  note  that  the  Rhemish  version  gives  precisely  the 
same  future  meaning  to  <rot$  rfw£of/,s'vous,  and  renders, 
"  they  that  should  be  saved." 

Heb.  x.  38.  — "Now  the  just  shall  live  by  faith; 
but  if  any  man  draw  back,  my  soul  shall  have  no 
pleasure  in  him."  Here,  too,  it  has  been  often  as 
serted,  last  of  all  by  Professor  Blunt,  that  the  doctri 
nal  tendencies  of  the  Translators  exercised  an  unwar 
rantable  influence  on  the  translation.  No  unpreju 
diced  person,  it  has  been  said,  can  read  the  verse  in 
the  original,  and  not  acknowledge  that  the  person 
whose  drawing  back  is  supposed  possible  in  the  sec 
ond  clause  of  the  verse  is  *  the  just'  of  the  first  clause. 
So  Tyndale  had  translated  it :  "  But  the  just  shall 
live  by  faith  ;  and  if  he  withdraw  himself,"  &c. —  Cov- 
erdale  and  Cranmcr  in  the  same  way.  But  this  verse, 
so  rendered,  would  have  contradicted  the  doctrine  of 

8 


170  ON »  SOME   CHARGES   UNJUSTLY   BROUGHT 

final  perseverance ;  and  therefore,  it  is  said,  in  the 
Geneva  version  i  any'  was  substituted  for  '  he,'  and 
'  any  man,'  in  our  Version.  No  objection  to  the  en 
tire  good  faith  of  our  Translators  is  oftener  urged 
than  this.  Now,  I  certainly  think  myself  that  Shews 
is  the  nominative  to  u^orfrsiX^Taf,  and  that  the  passage 
does  contradict  the  doctrine  of  final  perseverance  in 
its  high  Calvinistic  or  necessitarian  shape.  But  to 
the  present  day,  the  other  view  of  the  passage,  that 
namely  of  our  Translation,  which  would  disengage  an 
av6puifos  or  a  rls  from  Slxouost  and  make  it  the  nomina 
tive  to  uflrorfTsiXrjTai,  is  maintained  by  scholars  such  as 
De  Wette  and  Winer,  who  are  certainly  as  remote  as 
well  can  be  from  any  Calvinistic  leanings. 

Leaving  these  passages  which  involve  doctrine,  I 
may  just  mention  one  other  which  has  no  such  signifi 
cance.  In  this,  fault  may  be  justly  found,  and  has 
been  found,  with  the  words  as  they  stand  in  our  Ver 
sion  ;  while  yet  I  am  convinced,  though  it  is  impossible 
to  bring  this  to  absolute  proof,  that  the  incorrectness 
is  with  the  printers,  and  not  with  the  Translators.  I 
allude  to  Matt,  xxiii.  24.  "  Which  strain  at  a  gnat" 
has  been  often  objected  to  there.  Long  ago  Bishop 
Lowth  complained,  "  The  impropriety  of  the  preposi 
tion  has  wholly  destroyed  the  meaning  of  the  phrase." 
I  can  not  doubt,  as  I  have  expressed  elsewhere,  that 
we  have  here  a  misprint,  which,  having  been  passed 
ovei  in  the  first  edition  of  1611,  has  held  its  ground 
ever  since ;  nor  yet  that  our  Translators  intended, 


AGAINST   OUR   VERSION.  171 

"  which  strain  out  a  gnat,  and  swallow  a  camel ;"  this 
being  at  once  intelligible,  and  a  correct  rendering  of 
the  original ;  while  our  Version,  as  at  present  it  stands, 
is  neither;  or  only  intelligible  on  the  supposition,  no 
doubt  the  supposition  of  most  English  readers,  that 
"  strain  at "  means,  swallow  with  difficulty,  men  hardly 
and  with  effort  swallowing  the  little  insect,  but  gulp 
ing  down  meanwhile,  unconcerned,  the  huge  animal. 
It  need  scarcely  be  said  that  this  is  very  far  from  tho 
meaning  of  the  original  words,  oi  £»DXi£Ws£  TOV  xwvwra, 
by  Meyer  rendered  well,  "  percolando  removentes 
muscam  ;"  and  by  the  Vulgate  also  not  ill,  "  excolantes 
culicein ;"  for  which  use  of  SivXi%e;v,  as  to  cleanse  by 
passing  through  a  strainer,  see  Plutarch,  Symp.,\i.  7. 
1.  It  was  the  custom  of  the  more  accurate  and  stri  tor 
Jews  to  strain  their  wine,  vinegar,  and  other  pofr  i  les, 
through  linen  or  gauze,  lest  unawares  they  should 
drink  do\\n  some  little  unclean  insect  therein,  and 
thus  transgress  Lev.  xi.  20,  23,  41,  42— just  as  the 
Buddhists  do  now  in  Ceylon  and  Hindostan  —  and  to 
this  custom  of  theirs  the  Lord  refers.  A  recent  trav 
eller  in  North  Africa  writes  in  an  unpublished  com 
munication  which  he  has  been  good  enough  to  make 
to  me  :  "  In  a  ride  from  Tangier  to  Tetuan  I  observed 
that  a  Moorish  soldier  who  accompanied  me,  when  he 
drank,  always  unfolded  the  end  of  his  turban  and 
placed  it  over  the  mouth  of  his  bota,  drinking  through 
the  muslin,  to  strain  out  the  gnats,  whose  larva?  swarm 
in  the  water  of  that  country."  The  further  fact  that 


172         UNJUST    CHARGES    AGAINST    OUR   VERSION. 

our  present  Version  rests  to  so  great  an  extent  on  the 
three  preceding,  Tyndale's,  Cranrner's,  and  the  Ge 
neva,  and  that  all  these  have  "  strain  out"  is  addi 
tional  evidence  in  confirmation  of  that  about  which 
for  myself  I  feel  no  doubt,  namely,  that  we  have  here 
an  uncorrectcd  error  of  the  press.  There  was  no  such 
faultless  accuracy  in  the  first  edition,  as  should  make 
us  unwilling  to  suppose  this  ;  on  the  contrary,  more 
than  one  mistake  was  subsequently  discovered  and 
removed.  Thus,  it  stood  in  the  exemplar  edition  of 
1011,  at  1  Cor.  iv.  9 :  "  God  hath  set  forth  us  the 
apostles  last,  as  it  were  approved  to  death  ;"  yet  '  ap 
proved'  was  afterward  changed  for  the  wrord  no  doubt 
intended,  '  appointed.'  In  another  passage,  I  mean 
1  Cor.  xii.  28,  the  misprint,  "  helps  in  governments," 
after  having  retained  its  place  in  several  successive 
editions,  was  afterward  in  like  manner  removed,  and 
the  present  corrector  reading,  "  helps,  governments" 
ojtfsig)  ?  substituted  in  its  room. 


BEST   MEANS   OF   CARRYING   OUT   A   REVISION.     173 


CHAPTER   XI. 

ON   THE   BEST   MEANS   OF   CARRYING   OUT   A   REVISION. 

I  HAVE  thus  endeavored  to  make  as  just  an  estimate 
as  I  could  of  the  merits,  and,  where  such  exist,  of  the 
defects,  of  our  Authorized  Version.  In  pointing  out 
some  of  these  last,  I  trust  I  have  nowhere  spoken  a 
word  inconsistent  with  the  truest  reverence  for  its 
authors,  the  profoundest  gratitude  to  them  for  the 
treasure  with  which  they  have  enriched  the  English 
Church.  Such  word  I  certainly  have  not  intended  to 
utter ;  and  I  can  truly  say  that  if  a  close  and  minute 
examination  of  parts  of  their  work  reveals  flaws  which 
one  had  not  suspected  before,  it  also  discovers  a  more 
than  counterbalancing  amount  of  merits,  of  which  one 
had  not  hitherto  been  aware. 

A  few  words  in  conclusion.  They  shall  be — first, 
on  the  difficulties  and  dangers  which  manifestly  beset 
a  revision ;  and,  secondly,  on  the  manner  in  which 
these  might  be  best  overcome. 

Among  these  difficulties,  I  will  not  more  than  touch 


174  ON   THE   BEST   MEANS    Of 

on  that  of  the  formation  of  a  Greek  text  which  the 
revised  Version  should  seek  to  represent ;  and  yet  it 
is  a  difficulty  of  the  most  serious  character.  Let  it 
once  be  recognised  that  any  change  is  to  take  place, 
and  it  will  be  manifestly  impossible  to  rest  content 
with  the  text  which  our  Translators  used.  Take 
cases,  for  instance,  where  every  critical  edition  of 
later  times,  and  on  overwhelming  evidence,  has  pre 
ferred  some  other  readings  to  theirs.  And  yet  these 
cases  of  overwhelming  evidence  will  not  by  any  means 
be  the  hardest.  It  might  not  be  so  difficult  to  deal 
with  them ;  but  how  determine  where  the  authorities 
are  at  all  nearly  balanced  ?  But,  satisfying  myself 
with  merely  indicating  this  difficulty  which  presents 
itself  at  the  very  outset,  I  pass  on  to  others. 

We  must  never  leave  out  of  sight  that  for  a  great 
multitude  of  readers  the  English  Version  is  not  the 
translation  of  an  inspired  Book,  but  is  itself  the  in 
spired  Book.  And  so  far,  of  course,  as  it  is  a  per 
fectly  adequate  counterpart  of  the  original,  this  is 
true ;  since  the  inspiration  is  not  limited  to  those 
Hebrew  or  Greek  words  in  which  the  Divine  message 
was  first  communicated  to  men,  but  lives  on  in  what 
ever  words  are  a  faithful  and  full  representation  of 
these ;  nay,  in  words  which  fall  short  of  this,  to  the 
extent  of  their  adequacy.  There,  and  there  only, 
where  any  divergence  exists  between  the  original  and 
the  copy,  the  copy  is  less  inspired  than  the  original ; 
indeed,  is  not,  to  the  extent  of  that  divergence,  in- 


CARRYING    OUT    A    REVISION.  175 

spired  at  all.  But  these  distinctions  are  exactly  of  a 
kind  which  the  body  of  Christian  people  will  not  draw. 
The  English  Bible  is  to  them  all  which  the  Hebrew 
Old  Testament,  which  the  Greek  New  Testament,  is 
to  the  devout  scholar.  It  receives  from  them  the 
same  undoubting  affiance.  They  have  never  realized 
the  fact  that  the  Divine  utterance  was  not  made  at 
the  first  in  those  very  English  words  which  they  read 
in  their  cottages,  and  hear  in  their  church.  Who  will 
not  own  that  the  little  which  this  faith  of  theirs  in  the 
English  Bible  has  in  excess  is  nearly  or  quite  harm 
less  ?  On  the  other  hand,  the  harm  would  be  incal 
culable,  of  any  serious  disturbance  of  this  faith,  sup 
posing,  as  might  only  too  easily  happen,  very  much 
else  to  be  disturbed  with  it. 

Neither  can  I  count  it  an  indifferent  matter  that  a 
chief  bond,  indeed  the  chiefest,  that  binds  the  English 
Dissenters  to  us,  and  us  to  them,  would  thus  be  snapped 
asunder.  Out  of  the  fact  that  Nonconformity  had  not 
for  the  most  part  fixed  itself  i»to  actual  and  formal 
separation  from  the  Church  till  some  time  after  our 
Authorized  Version  was  made,  it  has  followed  that 
when  the  Nonconformists  parted  from  us,  they  carried 
with  them  this  Translation,  and  continued  to  use  and 
to  cherish  it,  regarding  it  as  much  their  own  as  ours. 
The  Roman  Catholics  and  the  Unitarians  are,  I  be 
lieve,  the  only  bodies  who  have  counted  it  necessary 
to  make  versions  of  their  own.  With  the  exception 
of  these,  the  Authorized  Version  is  common  ground  for 


176  ON   THE   BEST   MEANS   OF 

all  in  England  who  call  themselves  Christians,  is  alike 
the  heritage  of  all.  But  even  if  English  Dissenters 
acknowledged  the  necessity  of  a  revision,  which  I  con 
clude  from  many  indications  that  they  do,  it  is  idle 
to  expect  that  they  would  accept  such  at  our  hands. 
Two  things  then  might  happen.  Either  they  would 
adhere  to  the  old  Authorized  Version,  which  is  not, 
indeed,  very  probable ;  or  they  would  carry  out  a 
revision,  it  might  be  two  or  three,  of  their  own.  In 
cither  case  the  ground  of  a  common  Scripture,  of  an 
English  Bible  which  they  and  we  hold  equally  sacred, 
would  be  taken  from  us ;  the  separation  and  division, 
which  are  now  the  sorrow,  and  perplexity,  and  shame 
of  England,  would  become  more  marked,  more  deeply 
fixed  than  ever.  Then,  further,  while  of  course  it 
would  be  comparatively  easy  to  invite  our  brethren 
of  the  Episcopal  Church  in  America  to  take  share  in 
our  revision,  yet  many  causes  might  hinder  their  ac 
ceptance  of  this  invitation,  or  their  acquiescence  in 
the  work  as  we  found.it  expedient  to  do  it.  Thus, 
the  issue  might  only  too  easily  be,  that  we  should  lose 
in  respect  of  them  also  the  common  ground  of  one 
and  the  same  Scripture,  which  we  now  possess.  Such 
a  loss,  either  in  regard  of  the  English  Dissenters,  or 
American  Churchmen,  would  not  by  a  slight  one,  nor 
one  deserving  to  be  regarded  with  indifference. 

Another  most  serious  consideration  presents  itself, 
Will  one  revision  satisfy  ?  If  conducted  with  moder 
ation,  it  will  probably  leave  much  untouched,  about 


CARRYING    OUT   A    REVISION.  177 

which  it  will  still  be  possible  to  raise  a  ques-tion.  Is 
it  not  inevitable  that  after  a  longer  or  shorter  period 
another  revision,  and  on  that  another,  will  be  called 
for  ?  Will  not  in  this  way  all  sense  of  stability  pass 
away  from  our  English  Scripture  ?  And  to  look  at  a 
mere  material  fact — The  Bibles  in  the  hands  of  our 
people,  in  what  agreement  with  one  another  will  they 
be  ?  It  is  idle  to  expect  that  the  great  body  of  our 
population  will  keep  pace  with  successive  changes, 
and  provide  themselves  with  the  latest  revision.  In 
ability  to  meet  the  expense,  or  unwillingness  to  do 
so,  or  a  love  of  the  old  to  which  they  have  grown 
accustomed,  a  foregone  conclusion  that  the  cbanges 
are  for  the  worse,  or  that  they  are  immaterial,  lack 
of  interest  in  the  subject,  will  all  combine  to  hinder 
this.  The  inconveniences,  and  much  more  than  in 
conveniences,  of  such  a  state  of  things,  assuredly  will 
not  be  slight.  This  prospect,  indeed,  so  little  alarms 
the  author  of  an  article  in  the  Edinburgh  Review, 
"  On  the  State  of  the  English  Bible,"  that  he  proposes 
the  institution  of  a  permanent  Commission,  which  bhall 
be  always  altering,  always  embodying  in  a  new  and 
improved  edition  the  latest  allowed  results  of  Biblical 
criticism.  It  was  startling  enough  to  read  somewhere 
else  a  proposal  that  the  Authorized  Yerson  should  be 
revised  once  in  every  fifty  years ;  but  this  proposal, 
if  one  could  suppose  there  was  the  slightest  chance 
that  it  would  be  acceded  to,  is  most  alarming  of  all. 
These  are  the  main  arguments,  as  it  seems  to  mo, 
8* 


178  ON   THE   BEST   MEANS   OF 

against  a  revision  of  our  Version.  None  will  deny 
their  weight.  Indeed,  there  are  times  when  the  whole 
matter  presents  itself  as  so  full  of  difficulty  and  doubt 
ful  hazard,  that  one  could  be  well  content  to  resign 
all  gains  that  would  accrue  from  this  revision,  and 
only  ask  that  all  things  might  remain  as  they  were. 
But  this,  I  am  persuaded,  is  impossible ;  however  we 
may  be  disposed  to  let  the  question  alone,  it  will  not 
let  us  alone.  It  has  been  too  effectually  stirred  ever 
again  to  go  to  sleep ;  and  the  difficulties,  be  they  few 
or  many,  will  have  one  day  to  be  encountered.  The 
time  will  come  when  the  inconveniences  of  remaining 
where  we  are  will  be  so  manifestly  greater  than  the 
inconveniences  of  action,  that  this  last  will  become 
inevitable.  There  will  be  danger  in  both  courses,  for 
that  word  of  the  Latin  moralist  is  a  profoundly  true 
one,  "  Nunquam  periclum  sine  periclo  vincitur ;"  but 
the  lesser  danger  will  have  to  be  chosen  ;  and  that 
will  be  in  the  course  which  I  desire,  not  that  we 
should  now  take,  but  should  prepare  ourselves  for 
hereafter  taking,  should  regard  as  one  toward  which 
we  are  inevitably  approaching. 

In  respect  of  the  actual  steps  which  it  will  be  then 
advisable  to  take,  I  can  not  think  that  even  when  the 
matter  is  seriously  undertaken,  there  should  be  for  a 
considerable  time  any  interference  with  the  English 
text.  Let  come  together,  and  if  possible  not  of  self- 
will,  but  with  some  authorization,  royal  or  ecclesias 
tical,  or  both,  such  a  body  of  scholars  and  divines  as 


CARRYING    OUT   A   REVISION.  179 

would  deserve  and  would  obtain  the  confidence  of  the 
whole  Church.  Fortunately,  no  points  at  issue  among 
ourselves  threaten  to  come  into  discussion  or  debate ; 
so  that  the  unhappy  divisions  of  our  time  would  not 
here  add  any  additional  embarrassment  to  a  matter 
embarrassed  enough  already.  Nay,  of  such  immense 
importance  would  it  be  to  carry  with  us,  in  whatever 
might  be  done,  the  whole  Christian  people  of  Eng 
land,  that  it  would  be  desirable  to  invite  all  scholars, 
all  who  represented  any  important  portion  of  the 
Biblical  scholarship  in  the  land,  to  assist  with  their 
suggestions  here,  even  though  they  might  not  belong 
to  the  Church.  Of  course,  they  would  be  asked  as 
scholars,  not  as  Dissenters.  But  it  were  a  matter  so 
deeply  to  be  regretted,  that  these  should  revise,  and 
we  should  revise,  thus  parting  company  in  the  one 
thing  which  now  holds  us  strongly  together,  while  it 
would  be  so  hopeless,  indeed  so  unreasonable,  to  ex 
pect  that  they  should  accept  our  revision,  having 
themselves  had  no  voice  in  it,  that  we  ought  not  to 
stand  on  any  punctilios  here,  but  should  be  prepared 
rather  to  sacrifice  everything  non-essential  for  the 
averting  of  such  a  catastrophe.  Setting  aside,  then, 
the  so-called  Baptists,  who  of  course  could  not  be 
invited,  seeing  that  they  demand,  not  a  translation  of 
the  Scripture,  but  an  interpretation,  and  that  in  their 
own  sense,  there  are  no  matters  of  doctrine  or  even 
of  discipline  likely  to  come  into  debate,  which  should 
render  it  impossible  for  such  Dissenters  as  accept  our 


180  ON   THE   BEST   MEANS    OP 

doctrinal  articles  to  take  a  share  in  this  work  —  as 
regarded  not  from  its  ecclesiastical,  but  its  scholarly 
point  of  view.  All  points  likely  to  come  under  dis 
cussion  would  be  points  of  pure  scholarship,  or  would 
only  involve  that  universal  Christianity  common  to 
them  and  us ;  or  if  more  than  this,  they  would  be 
points  about  which  there  is  equally  a  difference  of 
opinion  within  the  Church  as  in  the  bodies  without  it, 
for  instance,  as  between  Arminian  and  Calvinist,  which 
difference  would  not  be  avoided  by  their  absence. 

Let,  then,  such  a  body  as  this,  inspiring  confidence 
at  once  by  their  piety,  their  learning,  and  their  pru 
dence,  draw  out  such  a  list  of  emendations  as  were 
lifted  beyond  all  doubt  in  the  eye  of  every  one  whose 
voice  had  any  right  to  be  heard  on  the  matter  ;  avoid 
ing  all  luxury  of  emendation,  abstaining  from  all  which 
was  not  of  primary  necessity,  from  much  in  which  they 
might  have  fitly  allowed  themselves,  if  they  had  not 
been  building  on  foundations  already  laid,  and  which 
could  not  without  great  inconvenience  be  disturbed  — 
using  the  same  moderation  here  which  Jerome  used 
in  his  revision  of  the  Latin.  Let  them  very  briefly, 
but  with  just  as  much  learned  explanation  as  should 
be  needful,  justify  these  emendations,  where  they  were 
not  self-evident.  Let  them,  if  this  should  be  their 
conviction,  express  their  sense  of  the  desirableness 
that  these  should  at  some  future  day  be  introduced 
into  the  received  text,  as  bringing  it  into  more  per 
fect  accord  and  harmony  with  the  original  Scripture. 


CARRYING    OUT    A    REVISION.  181 

Having  done  this,  let  them  leave  these  emendations  to 
ripen  in  the  public  mind,  gradually  to  commend  them 
selves  to  all  students  of  God's  holy  Word.  Suppo 
sing  the  emendations  such  as  ought  to,  and  would,  do 
this,  there  would  probably  ere  long  be  a  general  de 
sire  for  their  admission  into  the  text ;  and  in  due  time 
this  admission  might  follow.  All  abrupt  change  would 
thus  be  avoided  —  all  forcing  of  alterations  on  those 
not  as  yet  prepared  to  receive  them.  That  which  at 
length  came  in  would  excite  no  surprise,  no  perplex 
ity,  or  at  most  very  little,  having  already  in  the  minds 
of  many  displaced  that  of  which  it  now  at  length  took 
openly  the  room. 

It  is  quite  true  that  "  no  man  having  drunk  old 
wine,  straightway  desireth  new  ;  for  he  saith,  The  old 
is  better ;"  but  it  is  on  that  word  4  straightway'  that 
the  emphasis,  in  this  saying  of  our  Lord,  must  be  laid. 
In  those  spiritual  things  to  which  we  transfer  this* 
saying,  a  man  may,  and  will,  if  he  is  wise,  after  a 
while  desire  the  new.  It  may  have  a  certain  unwel 
come  harshness  and  austerity  at  the  first ;  the  man 
may  have  to  overcome  that  custom  which  is  as  a  sec 
ond  nature,  before  he  heartily  affects  it.  But  still, 
just  as  our  ancestors  grew  gradually  in  love  with  our 
present  Translation,  Churchmen  weaning  themselves 
from  the  Bishops'  Bible,  and  Puritans  from  the  Ge 
neva — just  as  one  and  the  other  of  these  versions  fell 
quite  out  of  use,  though  living  on,  the  latter  espe 
cially,  for  some  time  after  they  had  been  formally 


182  ON   THE    BEST   MEANS   OF 

superseded  by  the  present  Version,  Churchmen  and 
Puritans  finally  agreeing  in  the  decision,  not  that  the 
old  was  better,  but  the  new — so  will  it  be  here. 
What  amount  of  difficulty  those  who  lived  in  the 
reign  of  James  the  First  found  in  reconciling  them 
selves  to  the  change,  it  is  hard  to  say.  We  have 
curiously  little  on  the  subject  in  the  contemporary, 
religious  literature,  the  very  absence  of  such  notices 
seeming  to  imply  that  the  difficulty  was  not  very 
great ;  but  in  one  respect  it  ought  to  be  much  less 
now,  inasmuch  as,  careful  as  our  then  Translators 
were  not  to  change  wantonly  for  mere  change's  sake, 
still  the  alterations  which  they  made  were  consider 
able,  many  times  more  than  would  be  necessary  or 
desirable  now. 

And  even  if  it  were  never  thought  good  that  this 
final  step  should  be  taken,  that  these  emendations 
should  be  transferred  to  the  text,  what  an  invaluable 
help  to  students  of  Scripture  such  a  volume  might 
prove  !  With  a  little  management,  its  more  learned 
portions  might  be  so  separated  off  in  notes  as  to  leave 
the  chief  part  of  it  accessible  even  to  the  English 
reader,  who  might  thus  be  put  in  possession,  though 
in  a  somewhat  roundabout  and  less  effectual  way,  of 
all  which  a  revision  would  have  given  him.  If,  too, 
he  had  been  shaken  by  rumors  of  the  inaccuracy  of 
his  English  Bible,  he  might  here  see,  on  the  warrant 
of  those  best  qualified  to  judge,  how  very  little  way 
this  inaccuracy  reached,  in  what  comparatively  un- 


CARRYING    OUT   A    REVISION.  183 

essential  matters  it  moved.  Granting  that  nothing 
else  should  come  of  it,  such  a  volume  might  prove  an 
effectual  check  to  wanton  and  mischievous  agitations, 
if  such  there  have  been,  or  hereafter  shall  be,  in  this 
matter. 

In  another  way  it  might  be  found  that  the  very  un- 
settlement  of  men's  minds,  consequent  upon  the  stir 
ring  of  this  question,  might  not  be  itself  without  a 
compensating  gain.  That  very  unscttlement  in  regard 
of  the  words  in  which  God's  message  has  hitherto 
been  conveyed  to  them,  might  it  not  prove  for  some 
a  motive  to  a  more  accurate  considering  of  the  mes 
sage  itself,  a  happy  breaking  of  that  crust  of  formality 
which  by  long  habit  so  easily  overgrows  our  reading 
of  the  Scripture  ?  It  would  not  be,  I  think,  for  most 
of  us  unprofitable  to  discover  that  the  words  in  which 
the  truth  has  been  hitherto  conveyed  to  us,  are  ex 
changeable  for  other,  in  some  places,  it  may  be,  for 
better  words.  The  shock,  unpleasant  as  it  might 
prove  at  the  first,  might  yet  be  a  startling  of  many 
from  a  dull,  lethargic,  unprofitable  reading  of  God's 
Word ;  while  in  the  rousing  of  the  energies  of  the 
mind  to  defend  the  old,  or,  before  admitting,  thor 
oughly  to  prove  the  new,  more  insight  into  it  might 
be  gained,  with  more  grasp  of  its  deeper  meaning, 
than  years  of  lazy  familiarity  would  have  given.  For, 
indeed,  according  to  a  profound  proverb,  "  What  is 
ever  seen  is  never  seen  ;"  and  a  daily  familiarity  with 
Scripture,  full  as  it  is  of  unutterable  blessings,  carries 


184     BEST   MEANS    OF   CARRYING    OUT   A   REVISION. 

its  dangers  with  it,  dangers  which  the  course  that  is 
here  urged  might  effect  much  to  remove. 

This  much  I  have  thought  it  desirable  to  say  on 
this  momentous  subject.  I  am  not  so  sanguine  as  to 
believe  that,  with  all  these  precautions,  great  and  se 
rious,  it  might  be  unexpected,  difficulties  would  not 
attend  the  undertaking.  There  would  need  no  little 
wisdom  and  prudence  to  bring  it  to  a  successful  end. 
Still  it  might  be  humbly  hoped,  that  by  Him  who  is 
ever  with  his  Church  this  prudence  and  this  wisdom 
would  be  granted.  And,  lastly,  let  me  observe  that 
when  we  make  much  of  the  inconveniences  which  must 
attend  any  such  step,  we  ought  never  to  leave  out  of 
sight  their  transitory  character,  as  contrasted  with 
the  permanent  character  of  the  gain.  How  large  an 
amount  of  inconvenience  men  have  willingly  encoun 
tered  with  only  some  worldly  object  in  view,  where 
they  have  felt  that  the  inconvenience  would  be  only 
temporary,  the  gain  enduring — as  in  the  rectification 
of  the  coinage,  the  readjustment  of  the  calendar  !  And 
here,  too,  serious  as  the  inconvenience  might  be  at 
the  first,  and  for  a  time,  still  it  would  every  day  be 
growing  slighter :  it  would  be  but  for  a  few  years  at 
the  longest ;  while  the  gain,  always  supposing  the 
work  to  be  well  and  wisely  done,  would  be  for  ever ; 
it  would  be  riches  and  strength  for  the  English 
Church  to  the  end  of  time. 


INDEX   OF   PRINCIPAL   TEXTS   CONSIDEEED. 


INDEX  OF  PRINCIPAL  TEXTS  CONSIDERED, 


MATT.  v.  21 PAGE  105 

"      vi.  27 135 

"      viii.  20 148 

"      ix.  36 105 

"      x.  4 148 

"      x.  16 106 

"      xii.  23 133 

"      xiv.  8 150 

•'      xiv.  13 151 

"      xvi.  15 44 

"      xx.  1,  11 79 

"      xxi.  41 76 

"      xxii.  1-15 88 

"      xxiii.  24 170 

"      xxiii.  25 32 

"      xxviii.  14 97 

MARK  ii.  18 .....127 

"      in.  18 149 

"      vi.  20 107 

"      vii.  4 107 

"      xi.  4 151 

"      xi.  17 98 

"      xii.  26 151 

"      xvi.  2 129 

LUKE  i.  19 128 

"      i.  59 127 

"      ii.  49 136 

"      v.6 127 

"      xii.  25 135 

"      xiii.  2 129 

"      xiii.  7 25 

"      xiv.  7 126 

"      xvii.  21 107 

"  xviii.  12..                  ..125 


LUKE  xxi.  19 PAGE  126 

"      xxiii.  42 121 

JOHN  ii.  8,  9 79 

"      iii.  10 115 

"      iii.  11,32 78 

"      iv.  6 120 

"      iv.  29 134 

"      v.  16 130 

"      ix.  31 44 

"       x.  16 93 

"      xii.  6 137 

"      xvii.  12 94 

ACTS  ii.  47 168 

"      iii.  1 127 

"      iii.  13,  26 92 

"      iv.  27,  30 92 

"      vii.  45 59 

"      x.  12 132 

"      xii.  4 34 

"      xii.  19 102 

"      xiv.  13 152 

"      xvii.  22 152 

"      xvii.  23 26 

"      xix.  37 27 

"      xxi.  15 28 

"      xxv.  5 153 

"      xxvi.  2,  7 119 

"      xxvii.  10,  21 78 

"      xxviii.  4 124 

"      xxviii.  15 63 

ROM.  i.  26,  27 138 

"      ii.  14 118 

"      ii.  22 154 


186         INDEX   OF   PRINCIPAL   TEXTS   CONSIDERED. 


ROM.  iii.  25  

.  .    PAGE    90 

1  TIM 

vi   5 

PAGE    110 

"      v.  15,  17  

117 

vi.  8  

145 

"      viii.  21  

64 

« 

vi.  9     .  .      . 

.  .       .  .    32 

"      xi.  8         .      . 

154 

« 

vi  10 

119 

"      xi.  2  

152 

"      xv.  4  

78 

HEB 

iv  1 

102 

iv  8 

59 

1  COR.  iii.  17  

76 

tt 

v.  2  

110 

"      iv.  9     .  . 

172 

n 

v   8 

43 

"      xi.  27  

165 

tt 

v.  11 

...  1  33 

ti 

vi.  7 

1  °0 

2  COR.  ii.  14  

139 

tt 

ix  5 

45 

"      ii.  17  

141 

(( 

ix  93 

.111 

"      v.  10      . 

131 

(< 

x  38 

169 

"      xi.3 

122 

(f 

xi  10 

114 

ft 

xi.  13      .  . 

101 

GAL.  i.  18  

1  55 

u 

xi  29 

.  .  1  60 

"      ii.  6,  9.    . 

162 

,, 

xii    16 

.  104 

"      iii.  22 

(( 

xiii   4 

165 

"       v.  6 

166 

"       v.  20  

156 

J\.M. 

i.  4   f>      

77 

i   26      

101 

EniES.  iv.  3  

29 

u 

iii  5 

.145 

"        iv.  18 

99 

<( 

v  9 

34 

"        iv.  29 

157 

1  PFT 

i  17 

10° 

PHIL  ii.  15  

1  ,'30 

iv.  9      

34 

COL.  i.  13  

"      i   15 

64 
158 

2  PET. 

i.  5-7  

j    14 

123 

128 

"      i  16 

129 

,( 

iii   12 

112 

"      ii.  8  

143 

"      ii.  18  

108 

JUDE  1 

2              .... 

162 

"       ii.  23 

.     .143 

REV 

iii  ^ 

146 

1  THESS  iv  6 

109 

(t 

iv  4 

73 

«            Y    02 

100 

1C 

iv   5 

124 

tt 

iv.  6-9     ... 

87 

2  THESS.  ii.  6 

77 

(( 

xvi.  2     ... 

33 

(( 

xvii    14 

114 

1  TIM.  v  4 

29 

(( 

xxi    12 

46 

"      vi.  2.. 

..116 

(i 

xxi.  19.  20. 

.    62 

INDEX   OF   GREEK   WORDS. 


187 


INDEX  OF  GREEK  WORDS. 


PAGE    85 

PAGE    82 

&uAo3ot  

..151 

107 

88 

91 

88 

125 

103 

68 

55 

51 

93 

137 

67 

152 

yitvva.  

85 

peravoia  

52 

152 

88 

92 

Si%o<TTaaia.  .  . 

156 

6>KEM  

161 

1  4.9 

68 
90 

JoijAoc 

QQ 

151 

1  ^4- 

93 

i  on 

150 

158 

99 

lv  

121 

63 

55 

105 

63 

• 

86 

145 

135 

89 

91 

86 

143 

107 

139 

94 

154 

146 

irropcw  

155 

149 

fa*1WM  

Ill 
161 

141 

i\'    ^ 

103 

.    .                  108 

162 

154 

..160 

89 
.    94 

188 


INDEX   OF   OTHER   WORDS. 


INDEX  OF  OTHER  WOEDS. 


ALMS PAGE  43 

Apollo,  Apollos 61 

BEAST 87 

Bribery 32 

By-and-by 33 

CANAANITE 149 

Carriage 28 

Cherubim 45 

Church 27 

Chrysolite 62 

Chrysoprasus 62 

Comforter 68 

Cretes,  Cretians 61 

Cumber 25 

DEPART 31 

Devotion 26 

Diana 55 

EASTER 34 

Elias,  Elijah 58 

Endeavor..                         ....  29 


GOODMAN , 
Grudge  . . , 


IDOL  . 
Image. 

Its . . 


,  79 
,  33 

,167 
167 
,  41 


JESUS 
Jewry . 


Joshua PAGE  59 

MILETUS 61 

Mercurius 55 

NEPHEW 29 

Noisome 32 

OFTEN..  .   43 


PERGAMOS 
PoBnitentia  . 

Pattern  . . . 


62 

,    52 
111 


RELIGIOUS 

Kesipiscentia 

lliches 


1 53 

52 

, .    42 


SARDINE  STONE 63 

Sardius 63 

Sedition 156 

Sermo 51 

THOUGHT 24 

Timotheus,  Timothy 61 

Three  Taverns 63 

Trouble 95 

URBANE 60 

VERIJUM..  .  51 


59    WHICH 47 

35  I  Wizard 68 


THE     END. 


A  LONG-PROMISED  AND  MAGNIFICENT  BOOK. 

Will  be  Ready  on  the  First  of  September, 

All  Illustrated  Edition  of  Edgar  Allan  Foe's  Poems. 


THE  POETICAL  WORKS 


WITH  ORIGINAL  MEMOIR. 

J/iiistrated  by  the  fulloicing  distinguished  American  and  Foreign  Artists, 

F.   R.  PlCKERSGILL,  R.  A.—  JoiIX    TfiXXIEL  —  BlRKET    FOSTER—  F.  O.   C. 

DVULEY  —  JASPER  CROPSEY  —  PAUL  P.  DCGGAN  —  AND  A.  M.  MADOT. 
Engraved  in  the  first  style  of  Wood  Engraving, 

BY  LINTON,  COOPER,  EVANS  &  CO. 
IN     OXK    VOLUME,    OCTAVO, 

Printed  on  the  best  and  very  thick  toned  paper,  extra  rolled,  interleaved,  and 
superbly  bound  ;  perfectly  unique  in  style,  and  one  of  the  most  elegant  pre 
sentation  volumes  ever  offered  to  the  public. 


A    FKW    COPIKS    IN    FULL    MOROCCO. 

PRICE,  NINE   DOJLLARS. 

EXTRACTS    FROM    NOTICES    OF    THE    ENGLISH    PRESS. 

"  Poe  stands  as  much  alone  among  verse  writers  as  Salvator  Rosa  among 
painters."  —  Spectator. 

"  Fitted,  by  its  binding,  for  the  boudoir  of  the  countess,  by  its  contents 
for  the  bookshelves  of  the  connoisseur."  —  Daily  News. 

"  Most  of  the  gentlemen  engaged  in  illustrating  this  volume  show  that 
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